Microsoft hides "official" workaround for installing Windows 11 on older PCs

[ibnMuhammad]

Way better than Win 10. Less memory usage and power draw in idle. The list goes on...

Interested to hear what the memory use on a freshly-booted Win11 machine is?

On WinXP, it was around 200-400mb, on my Win7 and Win8.1 machine, it's 700mb - 900mb.

But Win10 drove over 1gb - on a freshly booted Win10 LTSC (1809) laptop, with all the default services, it's 1.7gb.

Some people say, "no one likes change", yes, especially when change involved driving memory use closer to 2gb while running nothing.

 

[penn919]

I'm still using Win7, but yes, older hardware, and yes, no upgrades to Firefox (stuck on v115 esr).

FireFox 115 ESR reached end of Life last October. I've read many posts from people who insist on staying on Windows 7, but at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser. You may want to follow suit. Pale Moon is a firefox derivative that supports Windows 7. Try using that.

 

[ibnMuhammad]

FireFox 115 ESR reached end of Life last October. I've read many posts from people who insist on staying on Windows 7, but at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser. You may want to follow suit. Pale Moon is a firefox derivative that supports Windows 7. Try using that.

Nope, v115 ESR is still alive and receiving security updates until March (next month).

"at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser" ... like what?

Browsers like Firefox are possibly one of the most complex pieces of software ever created, arguably more so than operating systems (as they also have to manage multiple processes, memory, security, sandboxing, compiling and interpreting code, etc).

Sorry, but Pale Moon is a joke, a one-man band no one takes seriously, and likely a huge security hazard as majority of Firefox code can no longer be ported to such an old fork of Firefox from 8 years ago. Worse, it's not even multi process, meaning only a single cpu core can be utilised on a modern computer!

 

[Revolution 11]

Nope, v115 ESR is still alive and receiving security updates until March (next month).

"at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser" ... like what?

Browsers like Firefox are possibly one of the most complex pieces of software ever created, arguably more so than operating systems (as they also have to manage multiple processes, memory, security, sandboxing, compiling and interpreting code, etc).

Sorry, but Pale Moon is a joke, a one-man band no one takes seriously, and likely a huge security hazard as majority of Firefox code can no longer be ported to such an old fork of Firefox from 8 years ago. Worse, it's not even multi process, meaning only a single cpu core can be utilised on a modern computer!

So what are you going to do after March? Use something like R3dfox? Or is that also a joke to you?

 

[penn919]

Nope, v115 ESR is still alive and receiving security updates until March (next month).

"at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser" ... like what?

Windows 7 options are increasingly limited, so aside from Pale Moon, I can't say.

Sorry, but Pale Moon is a joke, a one-man band no one takes seriously, and likely a huge security hazard as majority of Firefox code can no longer be ported to such an old fork of Firefox from 8 years ago. Worse, it's not even multi process, meaning only a single cpu core can be utilised on a modern computer!

I admit I don't know much about Pale Moon myself; I just did a search for Windows 7 browsers and it was the top result. I'm certain you've heard this before, but I strongly suggest you try a Linux OS. These days, the user-friendly distros are polished and they excel at older hardware support. My recommendations are Linux Mint, Zorin OS, or MX Linux (if you have limited ram). All the modern browsers are supported Like Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Brave, LibreWolf and even Edge. Most linux distros support hardware longer than the hardware itself will last. Even 32-bit (i386) systems are still supported on some popular distros like Debian and OpenSUSE.

 

[Au Contraire]

Interested to hear what the memory use on a freshly-booted Win11 machine is?

On WinXP, it was around 200-400mb, on my Win7 and Win8.1 machine, it's 700mb - 900mb.

But Win10 drove over 1gb - on a freshly booted Win10 LTSC (1809) laptop, with all the default services, it's 1.7gb.

Some people say, "no one likes change", yes, especially when change involved driving memory use closer to 2gb while running nothing.

Interesting. Enough so that I checked my memory usage via Task Manager. Total usage is 11.9 GB of 128 GB with no pagefile used.
Microsoft has so many "services" loaded. Even though they might not be in use, the "just in case" loading of these modules bloats the O/S without need. Our need, that is, but remember the internet lives and breathes advertising.
Hmmm ... 15 Extensions and 3 Widgets in use. SecondCopy backup and SplashID password manager active. Edge was using around 1.4 Gb of RAM. Subframes running in the background: 3lift.com, adnxs.com, a-mo.net, criteo.com, doubleclick.net, google.com, indexww.com, PubMatic.com, rubiconproject.com, and yieldmo.com.
While these weren't eating up a lot of memory, they weren't providing me any needed or even useful info, so Techspot.com was de-whitelisted in Adguard. Boom! The subframes went back to wherever they came from.
Techspot being a "techie" site, I think it's safe to say that most other websites use even more ad-tracking mechanisms.
My point is that blaming the O/S for performance issues might not be the whole answer. If it's web-based performance being measured, then site admins, CFOs and CEOs along with their advertisers may be part of the problem.

 

[ibnMuhammad]

So what are you going to do after March? Use something like R3dfox? Or is that also a joke to you?

Didn't know about R3dfox, but it looks like it may be dead / "paused" for now. I don't blame the maintainer. Again, looks like the work of mostly 1 person. As stated before, web browsers are possibly the most complex pieces of software around, it's near impossible to maintain by a small team, let alone a single dev.

My point is that blaming the O/S for performance issues might not be the whole answer.

Hmm, there was no mention of performance?

I was pointing out the growing memory usage of a freshly booted system (running nothing in the background, except default services).

And I was curious of Win11 memory footprint and replying to @Yppah for more info.

 

[ibnMuhammad]

I'm certain you've heard this before, but I strongly suggest you try a Linux OS. These days, the user-friendly distros are polished and they excel at older hardware support.

I may try it again, but yes, the last time I tried it was over 20 years ago, stuck to it for several months, compiling my own optimised kernel for debian, trying to get sound working, etc.

But sadly, I'm too far invested in Microsoft - I didn't realise until I used MacOS recently for work, and realised I mostly use the keyboard and have finger memory of all shortcuts. It horrified me that in MacOS every app had slightly different keys for doing the same thing, as I imagine would be the case in Linux - since each distro is maintained by a small team which prioritises features over bug fixes and consistency in the UI.

e.g. in MacOS, going back in history on MS Teams is different compared to Firefox and different in VSCode, and even in Finder (which is absolutely horrible tool for file management). It also horrified me that there was no good free equivalent for WinMerge in MacOS.

In short, and to also answer...

So what are you going to do after March?

Basically stick it out as long as I can; yes - even on an unpatched Win7 and Win8.1 OS, until perhaps websites start breaking in Firefox and there's no workaround at which point I may consider one of the first iterations of Win10 1607 (LTSB), but hopefully not for another 2/3 years.

 

[arrowflash]

Nope, v115 ESR is still alive and receiving security updates until March (next month).

"at a bare minimum they emphasize running an updated browser" ... like what?

Browsers like Firefox are possibly one of the most complex pieces of software ever created, arguably more so than operating systems (as they also have to manage multiple processes, memory, security, sandboxing, compiling and interpreting code, etc).

Sorry, but Pale Moon is a joke, a one-man band no one takes seriously, and likely a huge security hazard as majority of Firefox code can no longer be ported to such an old fork of Firefox from 8 years ago. Worse, it's not even multi process, meaning only a single cpu core can be utilised on a modern computer!

While originally derived from old Firefox, Pale Moon devs claim their engine has deviated so much from Firefox over the course of development, that it's pretty much its own engine nowadays.

My main problem with Pale Moon is that it has terrible performance all around, in web page rendering, browsing, scrolling, everything. It's the slowest browser I have ever used. Pale Moon performance has always been bad but feels like it degraded further a lot in the last 7 or 8 years. Devs often blame overuse of javascript in modern webpages, but even in old school style websites that have little or no scripting at all (I.e. many retro computing forums, for example), the performance is still terrible.

PM is the last browser I'd recommend for someone with an old low-end machine. Yet recommending PM for this use case is a very common midwit take.

 

[penn919]

But sadly, I'm too far invested in Microsoft - I didn't realise until I used MacOS recently for work, and realised I mostly use the keyboard and have finger memory of all shortcuts. It horrified me that in MacOS every app had slightly different keys for doing the same thing, as I imagine would be the case in Linux

Shortcuts essentially work the same as with Windows in the distros that I use (debian-based). It just seems like Linux is the perfect fit for your situation because you keep your hardware and you'll get an updated secure system. You'll get a hang of the basics easy, but admin tasks might take some time to get acquainted with, but nothing a techie can't handle. Oh, and I can assure you that popular distros aren't what they were 20yrs ago. You'll see they've polished up nicely. I use Zorin OS, but everyone recommends Mint nowadays so I suppose you could start with that one, but there's no need to jump in cold turkey. There's this website that lets you test all the distros right from your browser. Check it out here:

Test Linux distros online - DistroSea

Instantly test run Linux distros online in the cloud for free, right from your web browser. No installation or live boot required.

distrosea.com

Microsoft has no qualms abandoning users with viable hardware who take good care of their systems. They figure hold-outs are acceptable collateral in the face of their monetary ambitions. Don't be afraid to return the favor.

Btw, Windows exclusive programs aren't always a lost cause. You can get many of them running via Wine and its helper tools like bottles, proton, Lutris and PlayonLinux. If a method exists, it'll be the first result on google search.