Month: August 2021

Enlarge / Microsoft won't officially support running Windows 11 on old PCs, but the company won't stand in the way, either. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Microsoft officially announced some small additions to Windows 11's official CPU support list today, along with additional details about the operating system's security requirements. But another, quieter announcement should quell more of the system requirement-related angst: the Verge reports that Microsoft won't stop you from performing manual installs of Windows 11 on systems that don't meet the official requirements. That means that people running Windows 10 on unsupported systems won't be offered Windows 11 through Windows Update, but you'll still be able to update if you download an ISO file and perform an upgrade or a clean install manually.

This will be a particular boon to PCs right on the border of Windows 11's system requirements, like those running 6th- or 7th-generation Intel Core CPUs or first-generation AMD Ryzen processors. These chips are missing support for a few esoteric optional security requirements but can otherwise meet the performance and Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 requirements and still get modern DCH driver support from Intel, AMD, and most PC OEMs.

Microsoft is still actively recommending that you don't run Windows 11 on any system that doesn't meet the official support criteria. According to data from PCs running the Insider Preview builds, Microsoft says that PCs that didn't meet the requirements had "52% more kernel mode crashes" than PCs that did and that first-party apps crashed 43 percent more often on unsupported hardware. But allowing users to make the decision for themselves is arguably what the company should have done in the first place—people who don't seek out the Windows 11 update will never be offered it if their hardware isn't up to snuff, but advanced users, testers, and IT departments who do want to run the latest software on their computers can evaluate the trade-offs and make the decision for themselves.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 promises to refine window management, run Android apps, and to unify the look and feel of the operating system's built-in apps after years of frustrating hodgepodge. But none of that matters if your computer can't run the software, and Microsoft has only promised official Windows 11 support for computers released within the last three or four years. Anyone else will be able to run the operating system if they meet the performance requirements, but they'll need to jump through the hoop of downloading an ISO file and installing the operating system manually rather than grabbing it through Windows Update.

This is a break from previous versions of Windows, which up until now have had more or less the same system requirements for a decade. Microsoft actually used the ability to run on older hardware as a selling point for Windows 10, making it available as a free upgrade to all computers running Windows 7 and Windows 8—if you get as many people as possible using the newest version of Windows, the reasoning went, it would be easier to get developers to take advantage of the latest features.

Microsoft's rationale for Windows 11's strict official support requirements—including Secure Boot, a TPM 2.0 module, and virtualization support—has always been centered on security rather than raw performance. A new post from Microsoft today breaks down those requirements in more detail and also makes an argument about system stability using crash data from older PCs in the Windows Insider program.

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If you were hoping for Microsoft to backtrack on Windows 11's stringent security-focused new system requirements, we have good news and bad news. The good news is that a small handful of 7th-generation Intel Core processors have been added to the support list, and systems that use those chips will officially support the final version of Windows 11 when it comes out in the fall. The bad news is that they are the only processors being added to the support list, and Microsoft "will maintain the minimum system requirements as originally set."

Intel's 7th-generation Core processors, codenamed Kaby Lake, were launched mostly in late 2016 and through 2017, though many computers that use them were available for purchase long after that. The specific 7th-generation processors that have been added to the compatibility list are:

• X-series processors based on the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake architectures, like the Core i5-7640X and Core i7-7800X
• W-series Xeon processors
• The Core i7-7820HQ specifically, with the caveat that systems with this processor must be using DCH drivers

If the decision to support one specific 7th-generation Core i7 laptop processor strikes you as odd, you don't need to look far for an explanation—this just happens to be the CPU included in Microsoft's Surface Studio 2, which Microsoft still sells but has not updated in three years. That Microsoft was about to stop supporting a PC it is currently selling and for which it controls everything from the firmware to the drivers earned the company some well-deserved scorn from users and the press. Adding support for it is laudable, but it's also the bare minimum—Windows 11 will still leave behind Surface products as recent as 2017's 5th-generation Surface Pro and 1st-generation Surface Laptop and the cheapest configurations of 2017's Surface Book 2 (higher-end configurations used 8th-generation processors, but the cheapest models did not).

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  After prying off the screen and a graphite cover over the battery, the main guts of the Pixel 5a look like this. [credit: PBKreviews ]

iFixit seems to have given up on full teardowns for the Pixel line, but we still have YouTubers! PBKreviews has ripped apart the Pixel 5a on camera, exposing the water-resistant innards for all to see.

The Pixel 5a's construction is not all that different from the Pixel 5. The screen is again held on with Google's unique combination of glue and rectangular clips. While that combo seems like it would result in better screen adhesion than most smartphones, the methodology actually didn't fare well on the Pixel 5, as users complained about uneven panel gaps. The Pixel 5a display tabs are now a lot bigger, and there are more of them, so hopefully, that will prevent similar alignment problems.

For a phone with a plastic exterior, there's a surprising amount of metal in the Pixel 5a. One of the first things you'll see after prying off the screen is a metal cover over the motherboard. Like the Pixel 5a, the whole back of the phone is metal, but that metal is hidden in a plastic coating Google calls a "bio-resin."

Enlarge / The intersection of Interstates 10 and 610 in Houston, Texas, during evening rush hour. (credit: Getty Images)

You often hear people say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I bring this up because of an interesting—if infuriating—thread I read this morning about Texas' plan to widen I-35 as it cuts through the heart of Austin.

Unsurprisingly, the state wants to build more lanes, which it thinks will ease congestion. At some points, this could leave I-35 as much as 20 lanes wide; this will require bulldozing dozens of businesses along the way. An alternative that would have buried 12 lanes of the highway in two levels of underground tunnels was apparently considered too costly.

But it would be wrong to single out this eight-mile proposal as an outlier. In Houston, the state plans to widen I-45 despite plenty of opposition, including from the Federal Highway Administration. And you don't have to look far to see other state governments wanting to build new roads to reduce congestion.

Enlarge (credit: Arm)

Brussels is set to launch a formal competition probe early next month into Nvidia’s planned $54 billion takeover of British chip designer Arm, after months of informal discussions between regulators and the US chip company.

The investigation is likely to begin after Nvidia officially notifies the European Commission of its plan to acquire Arm, with the US chipmaker planning to make its submission in the week starting September 6, according to two people with direct knowledge of the process. They added that the date might yet change, however.

Brussels’ investigation would come after the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority said its initial assessment of the deal suggested there were “serious competition concerns” and that a set of remedies suggested by Nvidia would not be sufficient to address them.