Computer Advice

[Jerry Bruette]

It's time for a new computer.The one I have is 10 years old and I'm running Windows 7 Pro. When I bought this machine I thought I could upgrade to Win 10 but no dice the mother board won't accept Win 10.

Here's my dilemma, I understand Win 12 should be released in June of 2024. Should I buy a machine with Win 11 and hope to upgrade or should I hold off until Win 12 is released and just be done. I'd hate to get caught with a machine that I can't upgrade but the wife wants to get a new machine now.

[Alan Rutherford]

...Should I buy a machine with Win 11 and hope to upgrade...

Yes, and this is a good time of year to do it.

[Jim Becker]

I seriously doubt there is much risk of a Win11 capable machine not being able to run the next version. Win11 brought the hardware security requirements (for good reason); otherwise, it would have been able to run on some older hardware. Those hardware security things are in every machine produced at this point. And as Alan mentioned, this is a really favorable time of year to buy a new computer of any kind, Windows or MacOS.

[George Yetka]

I wouldnt wait. They will probably upgrade you for free. Thats what happened with 11 for me

[Jim Koepke]

And as Alan mentioned, this is a really favorable time of year to buy a new computer of any kind, Windows or MacOS.

I was thinking of a Macintosh, I haven't kept up, but I recall there are emulators available that run Windows on a Mac very well.

jtk

[Mark Wedel]

In some cases, even those old computers could run windows 10, but might have required a MB bios upgrade, or changing BIOS settings which would have required a completely fresh install (UEFI vs legacy BIOS modes, which changes disk partition format as well as boot blocks) - at which point, the pain of doing all of that probably isn't worth it for a really old computer.
There is also no immediate need to update to windows 12 when it comes out - I'm always torn when there are major changes, because almost certainly it will break something I use or change how something works to a way I like less. But at some point, you want to be on the modern OS because eventually they stop issuing security fixes for the older ones.

[mike stenson]

I was thinking of a Macintosh, I haven't kept up, but I recall there are emulators available that run Windows on a Mac very well.

jtk

Not really emulators, but hypervisors. Essentially they control access to hardware and allow virtual machines to run. In general, unless you're really using the system hard, it's almost transparent.

[Jim Becker]

I was thinking of a Macintosh, I haven't kept up, but I recall there are emulators available that run Windows on a Mac very well.

jtk
No need for an emulator...you run native Windows in a virtual machine using Parallels or one of the other available virtualization systems. That's how I use my Vectric software for my CAD/CAM on my Mac in my office.

[Jim Koepke]

No need for an emulator...you run native Windows in a virtual machine using Parallels or one of the other available virtualization systems. That's how I use my Vectric software for my CAD/CAM on my Mac in my office.

Shows my lack of Windows awareness. Last time I used it much was before retiring almost 16 years ago. I did use it a little bit while visiting a friend two years ago. Mostly just to read the daily news.

I'm really not knowledgable with Windows.

jtk

[roger wiegand]

There will always be a next version on the horizon, it's how software companies make money-- there must be regular upgrades or soon there is no revenue. If you need a new machine, don't worry about it unless it somehow requires a major hardware change.

I recently, after 12 years, got a new MacBook Pro. Couldn't be happier with everything about the new machine. The nice thing about updating only once a decade is that you can really see the difference! For a desktop machine the Mac Mini is a relative bargain (the MBP is not!)

I have a couple obscure and antiquated Windows programs I need to use, I've discovered a program called Crossover (https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover), which is a commercial implementation of the open source Wine project (https://www.winehq.org). It allows you to run Windows programs on UNIX and other machines without having to have any kind of Windows install on your machine and supports programs that require something like Win95 or Win3, as well as the most up-to-date games on the most recent OS. It works astonishingly well, allowing me to use Windows programs that won't run on a real Windows machine anymore-- you can create a Win95 "bottle" that gives the program everything it needs to function including access to all the hardware attached to your machine.

[Jim Becker]

Roger, does Crossover/WINE actually work with Apple Silicone? (M1, M2 M3) Emulation was easy with Intel processors, but they are now a thing of the past in the Apple ecosystem. Parallels uses the ARM version for Windows which in turn provides support for Windows applications. (other than really old ones that require hardware stuff) Edit...yes, Crossover will work on current M1, M2 and M3 based MacOS machines. Crossover does not provide support for the one Window app I use, Vectric Aspire. (CAD/CAM)

[mike stenson]

WINE never really worked well for me. However, both parallels and VMware work great. Even on apple silicon.

[Jim Koepke]

There will always be a next version on the horizon, it's how software companies make money-- there must be regular upgrades or soon there is no revenue. If you need a new machine, don't worry about it unless it somehow requires a major hardware change.

Changing hardware seems to be a part of the corporate profit plan. Remember Parallel Printer Cables? Remember 25 pin serial connectors? Even USB sockets are changing. It looks like the European Union is working to get that standardized.

This is often referred to as "planned obsolescence" or "built in obsolescence."

jtk

[mike stenson]

In '75 it was observed that about every two years the number of transistors in an IC doubles.. that's still holding true.

I'm not sure how many consumers would like to buy a 4 core i5 processor today, nor would they like a USB-A for their mobile phone.

We have to bring a new product to market, every year, or our competitors take us to lunch.. and the same holds true for them.

[Pat Germain]

If you have a Costco nearby, I would suggest going there to pick up a new laptop computer. They have excellent deals which will more than cover the cost of a membership if you need one. Then you can save on lots of other things for the rest of the year.

[roger wiegand]

Roger, does Crossover/WINE actually work with Apple Silicone? (M1, M2 M3) Emulation was easy with Intel processors, but they are now a thing of the past in the Apple ecosystem. Parallels uses the ARM version for Windows which in turn provides support for Windows applications. (other than really old ones that require hardware stuff) Edit...yes, Crossover will work on current M1, M2 and M3 based MacOS machines. Crossover does not provide support for the one Window app I use, Vectric Aspire. (CAD/CAM)

It does, I'm running it on an M2 processor right now. (NB, WINE is an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator-- I won't pretend to understand the distinction)

Have you tried Aspire on it? I'm not too surprised that it might be an exception, but lots of things that are unsupported turn out to work anyway. As it is an open source project you could post in their discussion area to see if there's interest in making it work; lots of folks in the "maker" community run Macs and would probably like it to work. I'm guessing it might have some security built in that makes it problematic to implement.

[Jim Becker]

Changing hardware seems to be a part of the corporate profit plan. Remember Parallel Printer Cables? Remember 25 pin serial connectors? Even USB sockets are changing. It looks like the European Union is working to get that standardized.

This is often referred to as "planned obsolescence" or "built in obsolescence."

jtk
USB C has been around for quite awhile now and has "yuge" advantages to the older USB format(s)...higher bandwidth, smaller connector that doesn't care which way you insert it, compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 and 4 for extremely high bandwidth connection of things like backup drives and multiple monitors, upgradability, etc. What the EU did was make it so that mobile device makers (IE phones for the most part) were setup to use the same connection so that buyers could get away from both proprietary and older connections across the board which reduces waste, too, from so many cables and power adapters going into landfills, etc. When Apple first brought out their Lightning connection, it had some advantages over the various USB connectors available at the time. That became moot when the industry developed USB C and it's good that they have finally moved over, even if it was forced by the EU action. They had already made the change to the iPad as well as the MacOS machines...so iPhone was the last to move.

[Jim Becker]

It does, I'm running it on an M2 processor right now. (NB, WINE is an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator-- I won't pretend to understand the distinction)

Have you tried Aspire on it? I'm not too surprised that it might be an exception, but lots of things that are unsupported turn out to work anyway. As it is an open source project you could post in their discussion area to see if there's interest in making it work; lots of folks in the "maker" community run Macs and would probably like it to work. I'm guessing it might have some security built in that makes it problematic to implement.
No, I have not tried Aspire on it...I already have my investment in Parallels and a Windows license.

[Alan Rutherford]

In '75 it was observed that about every two years the number of transistors in an IC doubles.....

That's called Moore's Law. Related to that is the observation that actual computing power doubles about every 18 months. Facts that you have to be a bit of a nerd to care about but because of those facts, the value (price) of a given computer decreases by about 30% a year. You don't have to be a nerd to keep that in mind when you're shopping. Computers drop in value even faster than new cars.

[Jim Becker]

That's called Moore's Law. Related to that is the observation that actual computing power doubles about every 18 months. Facts that you have to be a bit of a nerd to care about but because of those facts, the value (price) of a given computer decreases by about 30% a year. You don't have to be a nerd to keep that in mind when you're shopping. Computers drop in value even faster than new cars.
I suspect that rate of improvement is increasing at this point, honestly.

[Bill Howatt]

You may well be correct, Jim. I think a difference is that back in the real early days typical users noticed the improvements. For the past number of years, people doing browsing, email, Word-processing, picture viewing have had a more than adequate amount of processing power to do the job efficiently. Of course, if you are doing high-power gaming, and similar such as sophisticated video editing then that extra power is a real good thing.

[Jim Becker]

The Moore's Law thing has, IMHO, less impact on individuals like you and me now than it did "back in the day" because our devices are "so fast" now for the things we generally use them that little notice can be taken "in general" about incremental performance increases. Yes, if any of us are upgrading to a new device after using the current one for quite a few years, the performance gain will be noticeable even for basic tasks, but incrementally if we upgraded annually, there would be little to notice. My comment about Moore's Law likely being eclipsed and sped up is more about what's happening deeper in the industry...things like quantum computing, potentials for bio-computing and the influence on AI that may very well speed things up relative to performance development even more than with just humans doing the deed. There are a number of areas that are likely "on the crux" of major leaps forward. It's either really kewel...or really scary. Or both, depending on one's point of view. ;)

[Bill Howatt]

I find the specs hard to comprehend even allowing they are lab setup speeds and maybe only attainable for a short time but having a device you can write 5 billion characters to in a second (NVME disk) is beyond reality. Going with some typical size specs for a non-illustrated book, that is 5000 books per second.

[Mark Wedel]

That is some of the change in what we also use computers for. 30 years ago, people were just saving text documents and the like (digital photography wasn't really much a thing until 2000s I think), so files were quite small. But now with people saving large image files, or more to the point, video files which can be thousands of times larger than those old documents, read and write speed actually become important.

So if your computer use has not changed at all in 20 years, you could probably use that 20 year old computer without issues. But of course peoples computer use does change - even if it comes down to using the web, 20 years ago you did not care about performance of playing videos from the web, where probably everyone cares about that now (and it really isn't an issue for any computer because it is known that is an important use case so hardware is well optimized for playing back video content). But this also means that browsers change to support new audio/video codecs, etc.

The thing is, no one really knows what will be the next big thing or how computers will be used 10 years from now, and thus whether the computers we have now will be at all useful in that future world.

[Curt Harms]

I haven't heard or read anything about Windows 12 hardware requirements. I would speculate that there won't be the shift in hardware requirements that there are from Windows 10 to Windows 11. To Microsoft's credit they have instructions on how to bypass the hardware checks that Windows 11 performs so it's possible to install Windows 11 on a machine that wouldn't support it 'out of the box'. The risk in doing so is that updates and upgrades may or may not work and Microsoft doesn't support it. Sounds like "Here ya go, use it at your own risk. If it blows up don't call us." If I needed to install Windows 11 on an old machine, I'd use an app called "Rufus". It kind of automates the process. Will Rufus work with Windows 12? Dunno.

[Jerome Stanek]

I hate windows 11 wish I could go back to windows 10

[Warren Lake]

lady at the post office said same other day. I have 7 several of them then linux and a donated Mac.

One 7 on the net and one off, external drive if issues plug and play nother computer I got trapped a year ago no fun being a victim of these boxes. Have 10 and too many bells and whistles 7 is simple like my 50 year old european machines. Its a bit of a bother to transfer saved from the online ones to the other on a memory stick but its fine same time for the peace of mind. When I learn and do video editing ill get a box suitable for that and whatever is needed

[Bill Howatt]

... To Microsoft's credit they have instructions on how to bypass the hardware checks that Windows 11 performs so it's possible to install Windows 11 on a machine that wouldn't support it 'out of the box'. The risk in doing so is that updates and upgrades may or may not work and Microsoft doesn't support it. Sounds like "Here ya go, use it at your own risk. If it blows up don't call us." If I needed to install Windows 11 on an old machine, I'd use an app called "Rufus". It kind of automates the process. Will Rufus work with Windows 12? Dunno.

As far as I'm concerned it is unfortunate they even did this. W10 is very capable of running most if not all software but the main thrust of the restrictions for W11 was security - you know, the thing a lot of people like to complain about. This is likely the first time that MS has said their new OS will not run on some not so-real-old hardware. Windows users have always enjoyed a high-level of backwards compatibility. So this essentially keeps older less secure systems kicking around.