Windows 11 As A Microsoft Update...

[Scott Norwood]

The Win7 market share is not 20%, but Win10 is still 45% as of last month. OEM licenses have always been restricted to a single machine (normally defined as "specific motherboard model"). Retail licenses can be moved from one machine to another.

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[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have heard that 11 is significantly slower than 10. Is that the case?

I have found the opposite. In fact I have it running on an old Dell E6520 laptop with an I7-2460, all cores always running, and 8 gigs of Ram.That said, it runs considerably faster than with Win 10 on it. I did run across several posts that mentioned that 24H2 was a bit buggy, but I've only installed 25H2 here... on about 7 computers. I did that to see how it behaved before I installed it on our desktops. My guess is that this OS is using available resources more efficiently.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The Win7 market share is not 20%, but Win10 is still 45% as of last month. OEM licenses have always been restricted to a single machine (normally defined as "specific motherboard model"). Retail licenses can be moved from one machine to another.

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I only needed a license on one machine so far. If you already have a MS OS that's activated then it installs it as an update, using your saved license. I had several 4th Gen HP Mini's that have the license saved in the bios, or some place similar, and I did clean installs of 25H2 on those with no issues.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

So if you have any previous version of Windows its a free upgrade? What if you want to do a fresh install rather than an upgrade? Is it still free? How about if you build a new machine because they are forcing you to? Free other than the cost of the new machine? Its pretty unclear to me. Looking at what's available for sale it seems like they are mostly trying to bundle other services with them so maybe it is free or just comes along with 365 if you are already paying for that? Free just seems kinda suspicious, we all know no such thing as free. .

Ty, so far for me it has been. I only had one computer HP Z2 mini 4th Gen that required a license.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Also, on any computer with a CPU older than Generation 4, like my laptop that has a i7-2640, made in 2011, I use Rufus to get around the requirements MS has set. It doesn't stay with the OS on your computer, just does the work around at the beginning of the install. You still have to check a box that you agree your computer doesn't meet requirements before install begins.

[Ed Gordon]

Also, on any computer with a CPU older than Generation 4, like my laptop that has a i7-2640, made in 2011, I use Rufus to get around the requirements MS has set. It doesn't stay with the OS on your computer, just does the work around at the beginning of the install. You still have to check a box that you agree your computer doesn't meet requirements before install begins.

I have the same situation. Do you have a link to Rufus installs? My concern it that MS will kill Rufus like they killed Windows Media Center. I remember installing the unsupported version when MS stopped support. It worked just fine until MS pushed out an update the removed it from my machines.