Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
My i7 is from 2014 and is a 40xx. It’s fine. This is silly I can’t upgrade.

Friends and family count on me, a former comp. sci. prof, to stay current. It doesn’t help Microsoft that someone like me cannot upgrade.

I fully agree that a 4-series i7 is powerful enough to run Windows 11 (I own one too, a slightly more esoteric 4930K on the LGA2011 platform), but this hardware predates even Windows 10. People have been able to get Windows 11 running on older hardware like this, but the problem is going to be with the hardware drivers - the motherboard manufacturers probably will not write a bunch of new drivers to support our 4th-gen hardware in Windows 11, since they're not going to profit from doing that. People even with "supported" 7th or 8th-gen chips might not even get full driver support for some of their hardware, though I'm primarily looking at the pre-built manufacturers like Dell/HP/etc.

As usual, it'll probably be possible to get some older Win10 drivers working in Win11 (as I've done already with my Win11 machine), but we should all know that this could be a mixed bag for success or stability. Basically what I'm saying is that it's not necessarily Microsoft's fault that older hardware may not work, since they rely on the motherboard manufacturers for drivers, who then rely on the chipset/lan/sound/video/etc chip manufacturers for drivers...


Originally Posted By: eddie1261
Sure you CAN upgrade, Matt. It's just going to cost you. And therein lies the complaint I have had against Micro$oft and Apple. They hold us hostage with their upgrades that require hardware replacement. There comes a point where they create yet another new OS that your hardware can't run. I had an original iPad that couldn't run the OS needed to run the cooler new apps. I hate them for this business model of forced obsolescence.


That's just how it goes with technology. At some point the OS makers need to remove functions that are holding back the OS from greater improvements. Can you imagine how many problems there might be if Windows 10 still supported Pentium III or original Athlon chips?

Apple does this a lot, we all know that, but this stops the OS from becoming as bloated as it would be if it supported older machines. Microsoft is doing this with the TPM chip in an attempt to increase security in Win11. Windows 10 gave us a lot of free lunch, considering it can run (poorly) on computers released 10 years before the OS itself, but at some point the free lunch has to end.


I'm not trying to be an apologist for either Microsoft or Apple; I'm in the same boat as many of you guys. My LGA2011 machine doesn't officially support Windows 11 despite being able to handle 12-core CPU's and 64gb of RAM, nor does my 2009 Mac support Catalina, Big Sur, or the upcoming Monterey despite also being able to handle 12-cores and 128gb of ram.

Last edited by Simon - PG Music; 08/30/21 10:08 AM.
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