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During a livestream that aired today, Microsoft officially unveiled its next OS: Windows 11 and announced that Windows 10 users will get access to Windows 11 as a free upgrade, similar to how Windows 7 and 8 users were upgraded to Windows 10 for free.

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Microsoft also said that Windows 11 will be "the best Windows ever for gaming". To back that claim up, the tech giant announced a slate of gaming-related enhancements. One of these is Auto HDR which will make games look better as it adds High Dynamic Range (HDR) enhancements to titles built on DirectX 11 or higher that previously only leveraged Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). This tech was in fact introduced Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Another enhancement will come to loading speed through the new DirectStorage technology. This was part of the Xbox Velocity Architecture featured in the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S and Windows 11 PCs will load new games faster with a high performance NVMe SSD and the proper drivers.

As a final gaming-related feature, the Xbox app will be built into Windows 11 to provide easier access to Game Pass. Cloud gaming will also be directly added into the Xbox app on PC.

Another interesting announcement during the event, albeit not directly related to gaming, is that Android apps will apparently run natively on Windows 11. The apps will be downloadable from Amazon’s Appstore, which will itself be accessible via the new Windows store.

For more details about the gaming-related announcements, head to the official Xbox blog post in the source link below.

SOURCE

 

[protomouse]

I'm concerned about my data, so I'll continue to browse the web with this outdated and insecure version of Windows.

Spoiler

/s

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Or maybe that link is giving incorrect information.

Turned out to be the case, although previously no one new 100% because their own documentation was stating two different things. MS has since updated the link I posted. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/windows-11/#hardware-requirements

 

[Pluupy]

The Bit that got me was Under System requirements it has "Windows 11 Home edition requires internet connectivity and a Microsoft account to complete device setup on first use."

Nooooope

It's not required. They just heavily, heavily, heavily recommend it. In this video, at 04:25, the guy installs Windows 11 and the installer will ask you multiple times to make or login to a Microsoft account, all the while giving you the option to just skip. Windows 10 already does this in a way, but Windows 11 is far more aggressive by removing features from the operating system to punish users.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

It's not required. They just heavily, heavily, heavily recommend it. In this video, at 04:25, the guy installs Windows 11 and the installer will ask you multiple times to make or login to a Microsoft account, all the while giving you the option to just skip. Windows 10 already does this in a way, but Windows 11 is far more aggressive by removing features from the operating system to punish users.

If you watch the video, he uses the pro version of 11 (for workstations), not Home. Home requires an account unless you use the usual "no internet" bypass that works with Windows 10.

 

[Kraken_X]

I'm pretty sure that this TPM requirement is all about strengthening Windows Store and Xbox DRM, effectively turning all PC's into consoles in 2025.


From the TPM wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Other_uses_and_concerns


Other uses and concerns
Any application can use a TPM chip for:

• Digital rights management (DRM)
• Windows Defender
• Windows Domain logon [16]
• Protection and enforcement of software licenses
• Prevention of cheating in online games[17]

 

[Hakaisha]

Nice try, Microsoft! I'll be sticking with TempleOS.

 

[tech3475]

I'm pretty sure that this TPM requirement is all about strengthening Windows Store and Xbox DRM, effectively turning all PC's into consoles in 2025.


From the TPM wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Other_uses_and_concerns


Other uses and concerns
Any application can use a TPM chip for:

• Digital rights management (DRM)
• Windows Defender
• Windows Domain logon [16]
• Protection and enforcement of software licenses
• Prevention of cheating in online games[17]

AFAIK depending on the game they already use EFS on purchases through the store.

 

[nikeymikey]

My PC is only 4 years old and is not compatible due to the processor, guess my I7-7700K isn't enough nowadays. I'm not upgrading just for an OS ffs.

 

[CMDreamer]

Here comes the new Windows, a combination of what Windows Vista & Windows 8 had to offer to the computer users back then.

You need a completely new computer (diferent hardware) if you're willing to run this Windows version.

A single environment to control them all has never succeeded, anywhere. Will this be an exception? Time will tell.

 

[subcon959]

My PC is only 4 years old and is not compatible due to the processor, guess my I7-7700K isn't enough nowadays. I'm not upgrading just for an OS ffs.

The minimum requirement is a 1ghz dual core cpu so I think you'll be fine.

 

[NinStar]

The minimum requirement is a 1ghz dual core cpu so I think you'll be fine.

That is not the problem here, 7th gen core and older are not supported officially, even with TPM 2.0 enabled.

I don't understand what is the reason for this is, maybe some very specific instruction sets?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

That is not the problem here, 7th gen core and older are not supported officially, even with TPM 2.0 enabled.

I don't understand what is the reason for this is, maybe some very specific instruction sets?

Officially supported =/= does not work at all. I installed the leak on a laptop with a 7700hq in it, works just fine.

 

[NinStar]

Officially supported =/= does not work at all. I installed the leak on a laptop with a 7700hq in it, works just fine.

I know, but it's just strange they haven't made clear why these restrictions exists.

 

[Worldblender]

From https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/...ompatibility_a_brief_explanation_9999_of_all/, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...supported/windows-11-supported-amd-processors, and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...pported/windows-11-supported-intel-processors, only CPUs explicitly listed within the latter two pages are supported, which means at least 8th gen Intel / AMD Ryzen 2000 CPUs have to be used. All older CPUs cannot be used when the final version of Windows 11 is released; this doesn't seem to apply to Insider builds for now.

Although I use Ubuntu GNU/Linux as my daily OS, I'm giving out this information to let people better know the minimum CPU requirements of Windows 11; not just any x86-64 CPU can be used, but only the most recent ones from the past three years.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I know, but it's just strange they haven't made clear why these restrictions exists.

They're not "restrictions", they're recommendations. Big difference between "This will not work at all on" and "This is the minimum we recommend you use". You can only validate your product on so many pieces of hardware, it's impossible for any company to go and buy every single CPU or motherboard or GPU and go and test the thing.

I think MS just screwed up by giving an "officially supported" list of hardware for an OS, since it's clearly giving people all these wrong ideas that Windows 11 "needs new hardware" and other such dumb ideas that simply aren't true.

It's like PC game "requirements", some game may say the minimum "requirements" need a GTX 1060 or whatever in order to run, but that doesn't mean you can't use a GTX 1050.

 

[TheGodMauro]

I'll wait to see if the actual release brings performance improvements to the table. Direct storage is the only feature that looks good, otherwise it just felt like a presentation full of stuff that I would either remove, ignore or modify in a personal installation.

 

[NinStar]

They're not "restrictions", they're recommendations. Big difference between "This will not work at all on" and "This is the minimum we recommend you use". You can only validate your product on so many pieces of hardware, it's impossible for any company to go and buy every single CPU or motherboard or GPU and go and test the thing.

I think MS just screwed up by giving an "officially supported" list of hardware for an OS, since it's clearly giving people all these wrong ideas that Windows 11 "needs new hardware" and other such dumb ideas that simply aren't true.

It's like PC game "requirements", some game may say the minimum "requirements" need a GTX 1060 or whatever in order to run, but that doesn't mean you can't use a GTX 1050.

I get what you mean, I know the difference between these two things, but that wasn't my point, I didn't say it wouldn't run, I just stated that it is not officially supported and they didn't give a clear reason for this.

And yes, Microsoft is clearly referring to it as requirements, not recommendations.

 

[vincentx77]

I have to say I'm completely floored by the CPU requirements for what looks like another yearly upgrade patch. Ok, it probably has a few more features, but still. No intel CPUs before 8th gen? No Ryzen CPUs before 2nd gen? I could understand not wanting to support Core2 Duos at this point, but I fail to see how even Sandy Bridge is too slow to run this OS, much less Ryzen 1. I bet they're going to try to lock it down with a bunch of encryption crap that hurts the consumer more than it helps them. It's frustrating. I've mostly liked Windows 10 overall. Why do I have the feeling they're going to fuck it up?

 

[Lavaimp]

The TPM 2.0 requirement is likely going to shut out a lot of PCs that don't have it at all, or don't have it enabled by default. The PC I have from 2014 doesn't support it, therefore it is stuck to Windows 10. It can be bypassed for now but who knows if that will still be possible in the future?

Also there are some other "interesting" changes such as removing the possibility of moving the taskbar from the bottom. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications

The fact you can't move the taskbar to the top of the screen is already a huge turnoff for me, since i grew to like it at the top over the bottom

 

[BitMasterPlus]

The fact you can't move the taskbar to the top of the screen is already a huge turnoff for me, since i grew to like it at the top over the bottom

Being a top is always better than being a bottom.