Lippy

To add to this, below are the group policy and registry locations to change this setting to do the same as the comment above in order to allow for automation. Of course with the disclaimer that you should only use these if you know what you are doing.

Group policy

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata. Set the policy to enabled.

Registry (also works on Home edition)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Device Metadata. Create a REG_DWORD within called PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork and set the value to 1.

All of this is no problem and essentially any computer manufactured in the last couple decades can meet these requirements. They’re effectively irrelevant for this discussion.

Not quite. Windows 11 requires an Intel 8th gen or AMD Zen+ CPU or newer, with some odd exceptions. I’ve dealt with some machines that only fail on the CPU check and can confirm that Windows 11 will refuse to install without bypassing those arbitrary ‘requirements’.

I do agree with the rest of your post though.

It wasn’t the same experience over here. All MSRP cards sold out instantly on all stores. Whatever was actually in stock were all at least £100 over MSRP, and they quickly sold out too.

The entire GPU market has gone to shit.

It’s unacceptable that there’s new cards for sale (if you can even find one) that cost more than I paid for my 1080 Ti 8 years ago and have essentially the same amount of VRAM (12 GB vs 11 GB).

I thought that maybe the 9070 XT would be at least a reasonable option if I could get it for MSRP. Of course that launch ended up being another farce.

At this point it looks like I’m going to be riding my 1080 Ti until the bitter end. Sure, newer cards will wipe the floor with it, but I can’t justify the current prices.

That’s fine, I’ve closed the door on supporting Microsoft. They could have just charged for the ‘upgrade’ and that would have been better since it wouldn’t result in the colossal amount of e-waste that this is creating. Even without the forced obsolescence, their products have become hostile, invasive and generally just a PITA to use. Meanwhile Linux distros are knocking it out of the park lately.

I really don’t know what Microsoft are thinking. They haven’t made particularly good strides towards gaining any kind of goodwill, so once it becomes common knowledge that alternatives not only exist but actually show them up, those lost customers are people that they will never get back. Look how pathetic their marketshare is for Edge for example, even though it’s the default browser on Windows. They still haven’t been able to shake off the bad stigma that Internet Explorer had (and to be fair, they aren’t doing people any favours with Edge either).

That kinda did the trick for me since my old PC was starting to struggle with some tasks, so I went and built a new PC recently.

Joke’s on Microsoft though, I installed Arch Linux on it instead. It’s so much less work to maintain compared to Windows these days.

A relative of mine had also got fed up with the Windows BS and was interested in what I was running, so I got her machine dual booted with Debian now to try it out. She hasn’t looked back either, so that to me proves that Linux is ready for non-techies.

I already did this 2 years ago and I still don’t miss Windows. I want my OS to just work, and that means not having big companies intentionally blocking updates and bullying consumers just so they can profit from artificially induced OEM license sales. It’s pretty wild how quickly Linux has fit the bill in recent years, and how Windows no longer does.

Only hurdle on Linux right now is the transition from X11 to Wayland. Proton doesn’t have good support for it yet so I occasionally have to load an X11 session for some games to run. I can imagine that getting worked out eventually.

Microsoft could have simply dropped official support for older machines and then literally done nothing and that would have still been better than what they did. At least then those machines would still receive security updates beyond next year, provided they could still run the latest version of Windows.

For the record, if the arbitrary CPU block is bypassed, then it’s possible to install Windows 11 23H2 on a Prescott era Pentium 4 or Athlon 64. The true requirements did change for 24H2, but even then you can install that on a 1st gen Intel or a Bulldozer era AMD system. Microsoft can go suck a dick.

Yeah it was pretty terrible until recently. It at least seems to be changing now. The Pixel 8 line and up now get 7 years of support, and Samsung followed shortly afterwards by doing the same with the S24 series (but not their lower end devices). There’s still plenty of other Android devices that get barely any support though, so it’s getting there, slowly.

The S10 stopped receiving Android security updates in March 2022. The issue here is with an issue with a SmartThings app update on Android 12. Not sure if there’s any Samsung devices that both run that version of Android and are still supported, and that’s likely why the issue wasn’t caught.

I suppose with an issue this serious, they’re probably compelled to fix it regardless of whether or not the affected devices are still supported.

The turning point was when Windows was no longer set and forget. Windows 7 was the last time that was the case before I had to put any real work into it.

I put up with Windows 10 for a bit and wrote a script to neutralise bloat and configure the OS to some saner settings, then I could keep things consistent between installations. That was fine for a while.

But over time Microsoft became more unhinged and my script evolved into several larger scripts in order to deal with the BS. It became an endless cat and mouse game and I found that I was wasting too much of my time maintaining it just to have a OS that was clean of crap.

The last straw was when a botched update gutted the performance of my PC, and Microsoft took several months to fix the issue. I installed Debian which just worked, and it was good timing because Windows 11 was announced shortly afterwards. I’ve experienced it at work and it’s hands down the worst OS I’ve ever used, and I’ve used pretty much every version of Windows since 3.1. I think I’d even take Me over it. At least that OS sucked because it was poorly designed. Windows 11 is intentionally hostile to its users.

It wasn’t my first rodeo with Linux since I’ve been on and off with it since 2007. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works out of the box these days.

A few months later and I had built my new machine. I didn’t even bother to install Windows on it. Now I use Arch btw and haven’t looked back.

G Hub doesn’t work with my old trusty G11 keyboard either. Since it’s both required for Logitech’s newer peripherals and also requires uninstalling the old Logitech Gaming Software which would reduce the functionality of my keyboard, it effectively banishes any future consideration for Logitech’s peripherals.

It’s basically moot since I run Linux now, but I don’t fancy the quality of Logitech’s products either these days. It’s a shame since their stuff used to be really solid. My X540 speakers are as old as my keyboard (16 years) and also refuse to die.

I can vouch for that. For me it’s the scroll wheel.

I’ve been through a Logitech G703 and a Corsair Sabre Pro and both failed the same way. I’ve also seen it happen to a Razer Deathadder Essential. The shitty mechanical encoder goes janky after a few months and basically makes scrolling unusable, as scrolling the mouse wheel either doesn’t get detected or is interpreted as going the opposite direction. Yeah they can be ‘fixed’ by either blasting air into it which sometimes works for a bit or worst case, soldering on a replacement encoder, but even that’s just a temporary fix as it’s only a matter of time before that fails too. I can’t deal with unreliability like that.

Older mice more commonly used to use optical encoders which tend to last much longer but finding a new mouse with an optical encoder isn’t as easy. I finally broke down and got a Zowie the other day which should hold up a bit better in theory and only time will tell. I feel silly spending so much on a mouse, but I just want one that works.