The Migration to Win 11 begins

  • Thread starter Thread starter TalismanRich
  • Start date Start date
Oh, sorry. I was wrong. My bank do have browser based online banking.
Wasn't aware of that but I suppose it makes sense.

It might be surprising, though, how many 'young' people don't use desktop or laptop computers and handle things like this exclusively on phones or tablets.
Yes, my daughter and especially her husband do but many people use laptops at home and have for many years. My problem with phones is that they don't seem to like my skin! I had a similar problem with touch screens on Dr's surgeries pre Covid but they have been disabled or removed now. Obvious innit? Wonderful way to spread organisms with a screen that everyone, including the snot nosed kids play with!

My eyesight is also not good. This 15.6" laptop is a small as I want to go, anything other than a dab at a phone contact borks me. I will say the Blue tooth phone function is very handy with my hearing aid as otherwise phone speakers don't have enough welly for me.

Yeah! "sans eyes" (a bit) "sans ears" (quite a lot) "sans teeth" (quite a few).


Dave.
 
Woah.. I've been eying that same PC for a few months now as an eventual replacement for my ol' Dell Inspiron desktop 8G/1T HDD Win 10 system. This thing is virtually noiseless, but a hell of a lot of dust (lint) does collect at the rear vents. I just vacuumed it - again.
I finally found something missing..... no SD card reader! It's not a biggie, as I've got a USB combo card reader. I use the reader all the time between my Zoom recorders and my Sanyo video camera. Plus I have one on the laptop.
My current Dell Desktop has a card reader on the front next to the USBs, but I've only used it a few times. I moved some old pics from my Canon camera to PC, then some early mixes from my Tascam DP-03SD to PC. Haven't used it in years as all my transfers are done via USB or BT these days. While shopping for this new Lenovo, I have gone so far as to add a multi-card reader to my Amazon wish list just in case.
 
It might be surprising, though, how many 'young' people don't use desktop or laptop computers and handle things like this exclusively on phones or tablets.
Not that surprising. Fewer and fewer kids bother with "real" computers these days. The phone rules!
 
My current Dell Desktop has a card reader on the front next to the USBs, but I've only used it a few times. I moved some old pics from my Canon camera to PC, then some early mixes from my Tascam DP-03SD to PC. Haven't used it in years as all my transfers are done via USB or BT these days. While shopping for this new Lenovo, I have gone so far as to add a multi-card reader to my Amazon wish list just in case.
I see that Staples has the computer for $479, which is what I paid. I had mine shipped to store. I didn't want it sitting on the front porch while I was off playing golf for 4 hours! Besides, the store is only one mile up the road from me.
 
Some more "trials and tribulations" today. I have a Kodak color printer and an Epson 3170 Scanner that have served me well. Kodak doesn't have drivers listed anymore on their website, as they exited the printer business. Luckily I had the original install disk and that seems to be working. Not so good on the Epson front which is what I have used for scanning in old photographs from my parents' younger days.

The Epson scan program doesn't work correctly in Win 11, nor does it work in compatibility mode. That really sucks as the program has excellent tools for adjusting the scans for brightness and contrast of black and white photos. I was able to get it to work with Windows scan app, but that doesn't give the the control that I want/need. So not only is Win 11 killing off perfectly workable computers, they are sunsetting lots of other devices that are in perfect working order.

Seiko Epson apparently has washed their hands on the Scan program, and pawned it off to use Windows Scan. So it appears that I'll be keeping a Win 10 machine for scanning. I'm sure there are other programs out there that are broken. Time will tell.
 
I think it was when I moved from SE8 to XP that my printer stopped working. Fortunately my best mate found me one of those tiny computer chassis that I had tucked under the desk. All it did was print stuff!

I have had a Brother laser scanner/printer for more years that I expected it to last. Ran fine with W7 and now works er, ok with W10 but not the same way! Don't know why. When the printer finally gives up the ghost I shall go for another Brother but this time one with wi-fi.

Dave.
 
I've had a Samsung ML 2510 on a print server for at least a dozen years. I had a power supply capacitor go bad a few years ago, Replaced several that looked suspicious and it's back on line and going strong.

My Brother laser printer lasted about 6 or 8 years before it finally went crazy. I think the rubber parts started going bad, wouldn't pick up paper, or would misfeed and jam a lot, then the fuser started going bad. It would not set the toner anymore. You don't need smearing pages leaving toner everywhere! :-)

I have installed DaVinci Resolve to try it for video editing compared to my old Cyberlink PowerDirector. I'll give that a shot this weekend.
 
I've had a Samsung ML 2510 on a print server for at least a dozen years. I had a power supply capacitor go bad a few years ago, Replaced several that looked suspicious and it's back on line and going strong.

My Brother laser printer lasted about 6 or 8 years before it finally went crazy. I think the rubber parts started going bad, wouldn't pick up paper, or would misfeed and jam a lot, then the fuser started going bad. It would not set the toner anymore. You don't need smearing pages leaving toner everywhere! :-)

I have installed DaVinci Resolve to try it for video editing compared to my old Cyberlink PowerDirector. I'll give that a shot this weekend.
Don't know of it matters Rich but my printer lives in a spare bedroom that is not heated these days, just me here now.


Dave.
 
After reading thru this thread, we should be reminded that computer technology does not really look back. I too hung on to my old system for longer than I should have. My little I7 w/16gb ram and a 500mg SSD in a small box is light years ahead of my decade old I5 full size PC that I spent a ton of money on. And of course using Reaper really helps keep the costs way down. But I fought against an upgrade for a while... 😜
 
wmalan,

Its not that I have anything against upgrades. It's been a path that I've walked since DOS 3.1. I've got Win 3.0, Win For Workgroups 3.1, Win 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 7 and 10..... ( I avoided Win 8 thankfully... what a crock of $#!%). I've got Linux distributions, old versions of OS/2 and DR DOS. I've played with computers since the late 70s.

The one thing that really pisses me off is how Microsoft has "broken" untold thousands of perfectly adequate computers and accessories. Devices that have worked and are still working perfectly in Win 10 suddenly go tits up. I don't know what they could do to break drivers like they have. It's not like when they moved from 16 bit to 32 bit and then to 64 bit for the OS. That I can understand. Win11 is the same basic 64 bit system, not a totally different one like NT vs Win 95.

Likewise, the whole "you have to use TPM 2" or you can't use our software still pisses me off. It's clearly not an issue of computer horsepower, either. My 3.2GHz I5 is more than fast enough to do video and photo editing and audio, stream video and even play some games (I don't really do 1st person shooters anymore). My sister's 3 year old Celeron computer is slower than my I5 system by every measure, yet hers will run Win 11. I have 4 "active" computers, plus 3 others that get occasional use. Do I throw 5 of them in the trash for no other reason than that they don't have the right TPM?

As for the interface, after working with it for two months, I've "adapted" but my opinion is that it's two steps backwards. It takes me longer and more clicks to get to places that I used to get with a click a scroll and a click. They should allow people to adjust things to their workflow if they want, not make everyone on the planet work through the same pigeon hole. If you are happy with the stock interface, fine, but allow things to be customized. The option was in there through 2023. Then MS, in their infinite wisdom, said "no more" and took it out via an update. Another case of fixing something that wasn't broken.

I have been investigating some other options before trying to do the "unsupported Win 11 without TPM" move.

So far, I can say that I'm totally underwhelmed with Windows 11. But it may become the next "Windows 8.0" before long. I was just reading about Windows 12 yesterday. Yippee! I guess the PC makers need another boost. Let's obsolete some more stuff.
 
wmalan,

Its not that I have anything against upgrades. It's been a path that I've walked since DOS 3.1. I've got Win 3.0, Win For Workgroups 3.1, Win 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 7 and 10..... ( I avoided Win 8 thankfully... what a crock of $#!%). I've got Linux distributions, old versions of OS/2 and DR DOS. I've played with computers since the late 70s.
I get what you're saying. I retired just a couple years ago from the cad/cam engineering world as an NC programmer. Every year we dealt with software/hardware hurdles. And then even in my home and music life I was building pc's (as most of us did). I did my stint with OS/2 and Linux. But to me now..? My new pc in a box with W11 is running great. Sure there's some issues that come up. But it's pretty solid. And since my prior pc's were pretty old and had no real value left. I was good with sending them to E-Waste heaven (if there really is recycling of that sort of thing). Now I enjoy just making up songs for myself and the occasional open mic or garage jam.
 
Disable your Trusted Platform Module in the computer BIOS, install Windows 10 and Microsoft will see your computer as being incompatible with Windows 11. Give companies another year or 2 to get all their drivers sorted.
Also use the Chris Titus Tech utility to de-bloat Windows. Once Windows 10 is out of extended support just be careful about f***ing around on the internet. Use the computer only for music.
 
I'm typing this on my old Asus K54C laptop, second gen Core I3-2350M with 8GB, 512GB SSD and Windows 11.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to pick up a 512 SSD, cloned the old spinner in this ancient ASUS and try one of the upgrades to Win 11. This thing started out on Win 7, vintage 2010 processor. It still has the original battery which will run for about an hour or so, CD/DVD, etc. All the niceties of a budget 14 yr old laptop that is handy for browsing upstairs, or as a travel computer.

Using a system called Flyby which lets you bypass the TPM check, I fired up the program. It took about 1 1/2 hours to upgrade, and only one module didn't load properly. Wifi came up, and my programs are still there. I guess I'm good to go for another 5 years or so.

So, don't throw those computers away. They aren't totally worthless yet.

System update.webp
 
Hi Rich I have just got an AMD 3.5G 6 core Black with Asus MOBO running w7 after dire problems.
I presently cannot get the right Realtek LAN drive for the ethernet card. It works on a TP link dongle but was much faster on copper.

I want to upgrade it to W10, do not think it will run 11? I was prepared to pay a computer shop to do the work but they did not want to know.
Do you know the best way to get W10? I have fitted a Kingston 480G SSD and don't mind paying for ten and ultimately 11 if it will work.

The MOBO can take up to 32G of ram DDR3 and is pretty nifty with just 6G atmo'

Can I pick your brains just a tiny bit at some point? Will try not to be a pest.

One thing I would like to do soon is fix the old 1TB spinner. I tried to format it NTFS but only succeeded in turning it into a useless (it seems) MBF drive. Not a biggy but a lot of storage to weee.

Dave.
 
You can still download the Win 10 media, including making the media installation disk, directly from Microsoft but it may not activate. I had upgraded the old ASUS some time after the alleged "window" originally set up by MS a couple of years back but these seem to be recent developments.


However, I have read that MS no longer will update the license from Win 7 to 10. So you would need to buy a W10 license. The good thing is that Win10 licenses seem to be going for $5 to $20.

This was from October of last year.

Hello John, this is Emily.

Microsoft did indeed end the free upgrade from Windows 7 to 10 back in 2016. However, the upgrade path was never removed until last month. This is why many claimed that they could continue to upgrade without problem. Here is the official public release: https://devicepartner.microsoft.com/en-us/commu...

To clarify, you cannot use the original Windows 7 OEM key to activate Windows 10. If you have claimed the free upgrade in the past from Windows 7 to 10, that process assigned you a digital license instead for Windows 10. This article explains it here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/act... And I quote in the screenshot.

So if you did claim the free upgrade before the permanent removal of upgrade path, your Microsoft account at that time is your new license now. So if you are at a step where it asks for product key, select "I don't have any product key", continue your installation. Once installation is done, go ahead and sign into your computer using that same Microsoft account to activate it.

If you have never claimed your free upgrade in the path, then I am afraid you are a bit too late to do so now that Microsoft has permanently removed the upgrade path.
__________________________________________________________________


What model Asus mobo do you have? The LAN drivers from Win 7 should still be available. Or if you have a card (not on board) then what's the card model.

To keep from ending up with a bricked computer, my path is to get a new drive (now SSDs), and clone the old drive to the new one using Seagate or WD software. Then I swap the drive and do any experimentation on the new one. If things go wonky along the way, just swap the drives out start again. The old drive is your backup. I've done 5 computer that way. I have a box of "backup drives" with the computer and date on a sticky note.

For the ASUS, I got a Teamgroup Vulcan SSD. A TB drive is running $45 here on Amazon. I paid $32 for the 512GB drive. They aren't the fastest drives on the planet, but they smoke any spinner. Boot time when from about 2 1/2 minutes to 15 seconds. There's nothing critical on this computer and I can always pull out the backup if it does go.
 
Not to persuade you either way - but I have a MacBook Pro M3 Pro 38GB Ram 1TB SSD - and it rocks - there is nothing it can’t do and do well - of course the. price. pint is considerably different that your PC.
 
Thank you Rich. The MOBO is the Asustek computer inc M5A97 LE R 2.0 (skt 942) I have in fact just minutes ago found and installed the drivers for the venerable Delta 2496 sound card. Gave spiffingly low latency in its day and USB interfaces took quite a while to beat it.

I have downloaded the whole "Asus Suite" of drivers and run it. Seemed to sort out most things? The on board USB 3.0 ports now work (but not the 3.0 PCIe card but I need to pull that and see what it is) but not the Ethernet Controller...says it is installed but Dev Mang returns a "Code 39" error. But if push comes to it I can get a USB 3.0 to LAN adapter.

My next task is to see if I can rescue the 900G spinner, only ever used about 20G of it. If can do I can backup the SSD to that then try to install W10. I did try ten years ago and hated it (still not keen, XP is my lost love!) so did the roll back same day but from your post it seems Msoft might have a record of that install and thus activate the OS? Not fussed, a nifty for ten is small beer.

Dave.
 
Thank you Rich. The MOBO is the Asustek computer inc M5A97 LE R 2.0 (skt 942) I have in fact just minutes ago found and installed the drivers for the venerable Delta 2496 sound card. Gave spiffingly low latency in its day and USB interfaces took quite a while to beat it.

I have downloaded the whole "Asus Suite" of drivers and run it. Seemed to sort out most things? The on board USB 3.0 ports now work (but not the 3.0 PCIe card but I need to pull that and see what it is) but not the Ethernet Controller...says it is installed but Dev Mang returns a "Code 39" error. But if push comes to it I can get a USB 3.0 to LAN adapter.

My next task is to see if I can rescue the 900G spinner, only ever used about 20G of it. If can do I can backup the SSD to that then try to install W10. I did try ten years ago and hated it (still not keen, XP is my lost love!) so did the roll back same day but from your post it seems Msoft might have a record of that install and thus activate the OS? Not fussed, a nifty for ten is small beer.

Dave.
There are several other places you might be able to find a driver for the Realtek® 8111F LAN.


The only other thing that I can think of is if the LAN is disabled in the BIOS.
 
Back
Top