Win 11 alternatives

[johnwhelan]

If you have win 10 on a high end machine and it won't upgrade to win 11 then it's worth thinking about what the requirements are before buying new hardware.

First win 10 and UNIX are considered roughly the equivalent in security circles.

For secure communications ie internet banking a Chromebook might be the cheapest and most secure option. It gets updated for ten years but they are fairly inexpensive. So don't buy a ten year old Chromebook.

Trainz runs on Win 10 so leave it there. If you back up regularly to an external hard drive which is powered off between backups (Ugreen do a nice external case for a hard drive with power button) IMHO the risk of problems is fairly low.

UNIX is fine for browsing (Firefox, Chrome) and word processing (libre office) but some other software might not be available or be more complex to install than windows.

Dellrefurbished, if its 8th gen or later then it will upgrade to WIN 11.

Finally memory prices have gone up by a factor of 2 to 3 recently, AI eats memory.

Thoughts?

Thanks John

 

[JCitron]

There are some new Linux versions out there that seem promising such as Zorin. I tried Zorin in a virtual machine not long ago. This OS has security and privacy in mind and comes with Brave browser by default. The desktop is very Windows 10/11-ish and Wine is installed to allow running of windows applications. Just for kicks, I installed TRS22 and ran that in the VM. It loaded up okay, including the routes menu but couldn't load routes due to the constraints of the VM.

Chromebooks and Google tablets are okay. I have an old Transformer I used when I was traveling out west. The problem I found with it was its proprietary power cord and USB cable. On these devices it appears there's no such thing as a standard anything. If something breaks, then the user is SOL. They also tend to run slow compared to a real computer.

 

[pdkoester]

Since it doesn't require TPM or Secure Boot for Trainz, it would be good to use Windows 10. You can enable a feature in it to continue updates for a year as well. I get it, default or out of the box experience with Windows 11 has a ton of overloaded stuff and things turned on by default. It shouldn't have to be that way, and it should not be having people resort to doing things with Rufus or similar software to create a slimmed down image that bypasses the hardware requirements either. I am one of those that went through the effort to reduce the install ISO and defeat the 'spying' or 'calling home' it does with Rufus. Other than the Start menu being different, I have accepted using Windows 11 for some titles that require the TPM and Secure boot. My grandson's PC is still running Windows 10, perfectly fine, with a 4790K processor. Was not until about month or so ago, he lost ability to play one game out of all the ones he has. That is because they updated and required TPM and Secure boot.
If titles you use don't require those to things, UNIX (or Linux) should be fine as long as you get what you need working on it.
As for the memory prices and AI influence causing it, that is just crazy, ridiculous and unbelievable all at the same time. Not only does AI consume more power, pollute more than motor vehicles, and create absurd memes, it now has a hold on what people didn't take advantage enough with the prices before that took it away.

 

[pware]

Shortly after Win 11 first appeared I attempted the upgrade from Win 10 on my (what was back then) high grade machine. The upgrade, via the manufacturers recommended method, failed with the message that my machine was not compatible despite the manufacturer stating that it was. Sometime later I discovered that you could do the upgrade by simply installing the full Win 11 from MS. After backing up all my data I tried it and it worked - and no data was lost.

There are plenty of YouTube videos describing how you can upgrade a Win 10 machine to Win 11 despite the machine "not being compatible" with Win 11. I would not claim that they will work, or are advisable to attempt, for all such machines.

I am not yet convinced that there are any worthwhile or fully workable alternatives to Windows (in the sense that all your current Windows programs will still work) for those who want to leave that platform.

 

[wreeder]

There are plenty of YouTube videos describing how you can upgrade a Win 10 machine to Win 11 despite the machine "not being compatible" with Win 11. I would not claim that they will work, or are advisable to attempt, for all such machines.

These methods have a big drawback, Windows update will not work as expected. To update you have to keep repeating the method you used to fool Windows into installing and do a complete but updated install of Windows 11 over your existing copy. Microsoft has disable some of the hacks as well.

 

[lukewc]

I have 4 unsupported windows 11 computers here I7 and I5, they are all running windows 11 without any problems for more then 2 years! Dell, Asus and Gigabyte.
also 2 new (supported) computers running windows 11 all are working 100% update all the same. If you have problems with windows on unsupported hardware then you install it wrong.
Also have Windows server 2025 on unsupported hardware with NO problems at all.
Luke

 

[JCitron]

I have 4 unsupported windows 11 computers here I7 and I5, they are all running windows 11 without any problems for more then 2 years! Dell, Asus and Gigabyte.
also 2 new (supported) computers running windows 11 all are working 100% update all the same. If you have problems with windows on unsupported hardware then you install it wrong.
Also have Windows server 2025 on unsupported hardware with NO problems at all.
Luke

I could install Windows 11 on my two unsupported machines. One is an i3 with 4GB of RAM with a 512GB spinning rust drive. The Dell XPS18 barely runs Windows 10 after Microsoft decided to "upgrade" Windows 10 to be Windows 11 lite. The machine is used as a portable tablet to display sheet music in software specific to that and does nothing else.

My other machine is a newish i7 with 16 GB of RAM and two spinning rust disks. This machine is used for music editing and as a controller for my digital piano via Modartt's Pianoteq software. At one point, I had Pianoteq installed on an i9-12900K machine running Windows 11. The problem I ran into is Windows 11 is like someone with ADHD and had so many background tasks running that the software kept stuttering.

For this software, my un-upgraded Windows 10 machine works well as a standalone controller and if I ever have to replace the hardware, I'll move over to Linux because all the software is available for Linux now. In other words, I'm biding my time with this machine.