Or maybe they will launch Win 12 with optional TPM support.
Imho making the OS(es) TPM only cannot be good for their business, many people are still on Win 10 with no intention to switch, since their motheboard does not support TPM and do not want to upgrade PC / waste PCI-E slot on TPM extension.
The way Microsoft phrases it, it’s way more ubiquitous than you make it out:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/what-is-tpm-705f241d-025d-4470-80c5-4feeb24fa1ee
"TPM has been around for over 20 years, and has been part of PCs since around 2005. In 2016 TPM version 2.0 - the current version as of this writing - became standard in new PCs.
The odds are that your PC does already have TPM, and if it’s less than 5 years old you should have TPM 2.0.
To find out if your Windows 10 PC already has it go to Start > Settings > Update and Security > Windows Security > Device Security. If you have it, you’ll see a Security processor section on the screen."
So when they say:
“Important: Windows 11 requires TPM version 2.0.”
They’re requiring a standard established 7 years ago. Windows 11 launched in 2021, why WOULDN’T it require something from 2016?
You really want to run an OS from 2021 on hardware older than 2016? That’s not going to be a good idea, TPM or not.
Probably worth noting that TPM often needs to be enabled in the motherboard’s BIOS. It’s possible that OP has it already, but got the “you don’t have TPM” error when trying to upgrade to Win11, simply because it isn’t activated in their BIOS.
Also worth noting that people may have access to TPM through their CPU, notably AMD Rysens… And that some of those were plagued for a while with very bad performance issues when it was activated.
It’s supposed to be fixed now, but only if you got the right BIOS updates. Not sure myself, I kinda gave up on TPM and Windows 11 on my current hardware.
The way things are going, honestly my next PC will probably have TPM because it’ll have a newer motherboard, but I am not ruling out not having Windows on it.
Yup, seems likely given how it’s baked in and has been baked in for years.
Problem is, i havent enabled my TPM and don’t plan to, either.
TPM just gives your PC a non-spoofable fingerprint so Microsoft can always identify your PC. It’s simply a DRM-device built into your PC.
Your PC is already identifiable by the license key, the hardware installed, and you signing in with a Microsoft Account. If you’re that worried about gummint tracking or something, you shouldn’t even be gaming on your PC, as games and game stores have a lot of data to leak about you and what you’re doing on the PC.
Just because you haven’t enabled it doesn’t mean it’s not available. If you want a modern operating system, that’s the “you must be this tall to ride this ride.”
You mean a massively patched windows 2000 with modern OS? Does Linux count, or BSD? How about macOS?
Linux if you’re prepared to support it entirely yourself and still have functional issues.
MacOS if you want to pay 3x the price for hardware that’s 1/2 as capable and has locked you out of modifications.
Why?
10+ years of usage for a PC or laptop is completely normal outside the gamere/tech enthusiast bubble.
If you only use your PC for Amazon, Streaming and occasionally Word/Excel, a 10yo laptop is totally enough.
Because old hardware doesn’t keep up with new system specs. There’s only so much you can upgrade and replace.
Technically, yeah, I can run Mac OSX on my Rev. B Bondi Blue iMac. Should I? No. Not if I want a modicum of a usable device.
That’s an argument that wouldn’t even hit a barn door from a step away.
It’s an argument based on working in tech for 40 years.
Old as fuck machines can absolutely still work so long as you continue using old as fuck software.
If you want the latest, you have to upgrade.
Yep, it’s an argument outdated by about 20 years. At that time 10 years difference between two machines meant that you had completely different machine.
But having a good 10yo machine now means it’s about on the same level as an entry-level machine now. My laptop I bought in 2013 for ~€700 had an i7 4th gen, which is totally fast enough for non-gaming usage, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD and a dGPU that’s still faster than most iGPUs.
That are specs you can still find in modern entry-level PCs.
And that laptop has no issue running Win10 at all and if I workaround the arbitrary requirement for TPM2 and Intel Gen 8, it also runs fine. But I don’t want to risk that Microsoft sometime arbitrarily decides to not give me updates any more.
And also, the argument that it’s not a good choice to run a modern OS on a 25yo machine is a pretty dumb counter against the argument that a 10yo machine can run a modern OS without issue.
It’s hard to avoid. People here just have been bitching about tpm because Linux distro maintainers don’t want to jump through hoops signing their shit. This problem doesn’t exist outside of Linux forums and people with absurdly old hardware.
Wrong. Linux has supported TPM2.0 for ages before even Windows and every distro maintainer would gladly sign their shit. The problem is that a shitload of hardware only accepts Microsoft TPM keys by default which can’t legally be used by Linux distributions, forcing the work onto the users. It’s pure vendor lock-in.
Also, this is going to be a way less of an issue when UKI’s become the standard.