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Comment by tibbydudeza | Hacker News Reader

Could not be bothered to do a proper fix - Windows 11 and Alder Lake is the new thing.

I am still miffed about Skylake being out of support for Windows 11.

As I understand it, Windows 11's CPU limits are designed for CPU's that have specific hardware mtigiation for Spectre and Meltdown

Given that we're still seeing new variants of those today it doesn't feel like the most crushing requirement

Plus there's frankly nothing "compelling" about Windows 11 yet. All the promised features like SSD <--> GPU data transfers (mimicing the Xbox One and PS5) are just "things we're going to add" at some indeterminate date

Microsoft has by their own clock until 2025 to wow people over to Windows 11, and they've not even shown up to the race

> As I understand it, Windows 11's CPU limits are designed for CPU's that have specific hardware mtigiation for Spectre and Meltdown

"To run Windows 11, CPUs need to have the hardware virtualisation features to enable virtual secure mode for Virtualisation-Based Security and the Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity that underlies a range of protections that Microsoft has been building since Windows 8, like Application Guard, Control Flow Guard, Credential Guard, Device Guard and System Guard. Now they'll be on by default for all PCs, not just specially selected devices."

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-11-understandin...

Sounds like they want to turn my PC into something locked down like an iPhone and not risk me being able to “break in” to it via any of those class of vulnerabilities.

As far as I can see, these are all legitimate security features that will help protect the users (e.g. from ransomware attacks)

I don't see anything in Windows 11 that makes it more of a walled garden compared to Windows 10.

All the security measures can be bypassed by a technical user if need be, e.g. running unsigned drivers [1], or installing on a machine without a TPM [2], or setting up an offline account on the Home edition.

Satya Nadella sees Windows 11 being an open ecosystem as a selling point compared to alternatives [3]

Along the launch of Windows, the Microsoft Store is more open now than before [4]

For comparison, the current Linux boot security is very poor compared to other OSs, because it lacks similar features [5]

I think Windows 11 is a step in the right direction, and I'm saying that as a happy Linux user.

1. https://gearupwindows.com/how-to-disable-driver-signature-en...

2. https://www.howto-connect.com/install-windows-11-without-tpm...

3. https://www.windowscentral.com/satya-nadella-wants-windows-1...

4. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/09/28/micros...

5. https://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encryp...

Re: [4] will they re-allow crypto miners in the store? How about Torrent clients?

Yes, these types of apps are currently available on the store, e.g.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/wineth/9nkqnwq2l9lw

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/torrex-lite-torrent-downlo...

That first app violates Microsoft's ban on mining cryptocurrency on device: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/store-p...

"Apps that enable the mining of crypto-currency on device are not allowed."

For sure, Windows 11's CPU requirement has effectively ensure that CPUs going forward have some Specture/Meltdown mitigation in hardware. However, I would argue that the line wasn't drawn purely on technical reasons, but with non-technical considerations as well.

Initially, Windows 11 requires an Intel 8th gen or above CPU, but they went back to add the Core i7-7820HQ CPUs to ensure that the Surface Studio 2 currently in-market could receive the upgrade. Or consider that some 7th gen and 8th gen CPUs are based on Kaby Lake, but only 8th gen CPUs are supported.

The OEMs are also quite excited about getting people to replace their computers[1]. I am sure that's part of the consideration.

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/microsofts-panos-panay-expla...

there wasn't really anything compelling past windows 7 except "continues to receive drivers and security updates"

Admittedly, there's a light version of Windows 10 that runs pretty snappy on 2GB RAM tablets. I migrated one of those tablets (Asus Transformer of a few years ago) to Linux+Gnome because it was the only desktop manager to properly address screen rotation out of the box (again, it was a few years back) and I found it fairly slower on 2GB RAM than its original Windows 10. Agree completely on everything else: Microsoft totally borked the user interface from Win 8 onward, then decided it wasn't enough and added telemetry, then ads.

This doesn't impact many people, but WiFi 6e support on the 6Ghz band is currently only in Win 11 (won't work on Win 10, I've tried). Otherwise I pretty much agree with you, nothing that compelling.

There is no technical reason a 6E driver for Win10 cannot be written by someone.

If that's a selling point of Win11, I bet they refuse to sign the driver for Win10.

Didn't DirectStorage get it's Win11 exclusivity removed? and it'll be on Win10 as well?

They finally fully mitigated Spectre and Meltdown?

But AVX512 has been killed on Alder Lake also -- not that I was too excited about it, but it's certainly sapping my interest in Intel in the short and medium term. All because only P cores can execute AVX512 and E cores will fault on those instructions.

Can't let programs using them affinitize themselves to P cores only, oh no. Definitely need to kill the entire instruction set extension, or only allow it if BIOS writers figure out they can use unpublished methods to enable it but only if they disable E cores at boot. /s

(I may be wrong on some details above, I haven't been keeping the closest of eyes on the issues.)

My understanding is that AVX512 is not all that it's cracked up to be anyway, and that it also clocks the CPU down while it is executing those instructions. So my understanding is that a program (even if not a particularly heavy one) that constantly executed AVX512 instructions could cause a noticeable drop in performance to the entire system.

I haven't been following the Alder Lake situation too closely, but AVX512 is really multiple things that ought to have been orthogonal: (1) 512-bit vectors, (2) a much cleaner vector instruction set, (3) masked vector instructions.

It's mildly understandable that Intel didn't want to implement (1) on the E cores (though it would arguably have been better to just dual-issue them, like AMD did for 256-bit vectors on the original Zens). But there's no reason not to implement (2) and (3) on the E cores.

Perhaps somebody will clarify that (2) and (3) are available on Alder Lake, that would take a lot of the hurt out of this announcement, but it does sound like they're not -- and that's a major bummer.

> It's mildly understandable that Intel didn't want to implement (1) on the E cores (though it would arguably have been better to just dual-issue them, like AMD did for 256-bit vectors on the original Zens). But there's no reason not to implement (2) and (3) on the E cores.

It is very likely that all these aspects are very hard to separate from each other.

Agreed, wasn't too excited about it as a prospect because of reports like that, but now it'll be even harder to test for myself, and if it turns out to have _some_ use case, it's another generation before consumer grade stuff can benefit from it. Completely off my radar now.

>> I am still miffed about Skylake being out of support for Windows 11.

You can always run the latest versions of Linux.

Ah yes, because Linux is known for its perfect hardware support and DirectX support.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490753

(Ok to be fair I’ve never had issues with an iGPU on Linux. Probably because none of the package maintainers can afford a discrete GPU :P)

DirectX 12 support is getting better with Proton and VKD3D. It's not universal yet, but it works better than I ever expected such efforts to go. Today, I was able to play a game again than I have pretty much given up on playing on Linux. Granted, it probably does not use DirectX 12...

Regressions galore if you do and happen to be on hardware that is not that common, though.

I am still miffed about Skylake being out of support for Windows 11.

Is there a particular feature you find desirable enough to make up for the hot garbage that is the rest of Windows 11?

Security updates past 2025.

TBF, it's not like that's going to be nearly as much of an issue in 2025 when that Skylake CPU hits 10 years old.

Additionally, you can still run Windows 11 on Skylake, you just have to disable a few things.

I'm sure there will be a Windows Update patcher if MS does the same thing they did to prevent Server 2012 from updating on Kaby Lake and newer CPUs.

I think is very reasonable from MS's position to officially sunset those CPUs while not trying too hard to prevent them from running.

Same. I was planning on riding my build a while longer yet, but I was unwilling to be left behind, so I'm upgrading my PC soon.

Your actions repeated a few million times = Thanks Microsoft, for your contribution to e-waste and to a 1.5 degree warmer world arriving earlier than 2040.

Can't wait for Windows 10 to be EOL'ed, for this problem to get worse. "Switch to Linux" they say, but hah, the corporate bean counters will say retraining is more expensive, just buy those new PCs, that 1.5 degree problem, that's not our issue!

How about putting the blame where it belongs? Intel knowingly sold CPUs with Meltdown/Spectre for close to a decade before it was disclosed to the public.

Switching to Linux does not fix the issue as it is part of the hardware. We have mitigated the issue, and done so poorly. You are not required to upgrade to Win 11, and gives your computer roughly 3 more years until you repurpose it for lesser tasks.

Most of the corporate IT leases employee hardware already and has 3-5 year laptop refresh cycles accounted for. I don't see how Windows 11 will affect anything in the big scheme of things for large enterprise IT procurement.

But as far as home users are concerned, I fully agree with you.

Maybe in companies flush with cash - most businesses won't change their hardware unless they have a good reason to. Losing support for getting security patches may be one such reason.

But the average office clerk will certainly not get regular updates to the latest and greatest hardware.

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