Windows 11

[nickdalzell1]

Apple sloved this with Stacks and it's a excellent feature.

Helps also that Apple never believed in desktop shortcuts the way Windows does. At best you get your external and internal disks there and that's pretty much it.

Apple does allow to remove all the security restrictions on macOS. Go into recovery mode and into terminal and you can disable SiP. In fact Macs also allow third party kernels even on M1 and is supported by Apple.

Unfortunately, it does not remove all restrictions. You still cannot remove things like the Mac App Store, or apps that feel far more fitting to an iPhone (Maps, Books, etc) and you still cannot sideload an older MacOS app that would otherwise be compatible. It did however, let me change the icons to the pre-Yosemite look, as well as remove the notification center entirely and permanently block all updates by editing HOSTS.

 

[exoticSpice]

Unfortunately, it does not remove all restrictions. You still cannot remove things like the Mac App Store, or apps that feel far more fitting to an iPhone (Maps, Books, etc) and you still cannot sideload an older MacOS app that would otherwise be compatible. It did however, let me change the icons to the pre-Yosemite look, as well as remove the notification center entirely and permanently block all updates by editing HOSTS.

There were rumours that macOS 12 would enable deleting some stock Apple apps lioke you can do on iPhone. Hopefully, macOS 13 will alllow this.

 

[sracer]

Ok... I decided to take another dip into the Win11 pool. This time, I installed it on my Asus Vivobook E203MA. 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC (28GB formatted)

Installation went smoothly (but slowly). After installing, locking out updates, and debloating... 12.2GB free (out of 28GB).
Performance is surprisingly good and has a smaller footprint than Win 10.

Plenty of space and processor headroom to install my core productivity tools and MS Office.

 

[exoticSpice]

Ok... I decided to take another dip into the Win11 pool. This time, I installed it on my Asus Vivobook E203MA. 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC (28GB formatted)

Installation went smoothly (but slowly). After installing, locking out updates, and debloating... 12.2GB free (out of 28GB).
Performance is surprisingly good and has a smaller footprint than Win 10.

View attachment 2005846

Windows 11 is barebones compared to Windows 10. Put linux on that, looking at the specs i suppose only for light web browsing or was this a experiment.


(Please don't say that is a TFT panel. nooo)

 

[sracer]

Windows 11 is barebones compared to Windows 10. Put linux on that, looking at the specs i suppose only for light web browsing or was this a experiment.


(Please don't say that is a TFT panel. nooo)

I already have Linux on another Vivobook. Mint Xfce... works adequately enough, but there is no Linux version of the core app that I use. Win 11 actually performs better on these devices than Linux does.

 

[exoticSpice]

Win 11 actually performs better on these devices than Linux does.

That's good to hear.

 

[nickdalzell1]

2GB RAM? I wasn't aware 11 would function on anything lower than 4GB. I tried to boot the installer flash drive on an eMachines eTower from 2008 with 2GB RAM and despite disabling all prerequisite checks via LabConfig like all the other 'unsupported' hardware I installed it to, it refused to install. I thought the lack of RAM was halting it. I know Windows 10 runs on 2GB RAM since that's as far as I got on it. I planned to do an 'in-place' update but never got the time to do so.

Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 CPU
2GB DDR2 RAM
150GB 7200 RPM HDD
Nvidia GeForce 2 integrated with 2GB VRAM

I bypassed at the installer:

TPM check
HDD Space check
CPU Compatibility check
Secure Boot Check

No matter what, none of the hacks which enabled it to install on other 'unsupported' machines worked on this tower. The only difference is that this tower is the only one with 2GB RAM instead of 4GB+

 

[sracer]

2GB RAM? I wasn't aware 11 would function on anything lower than 4GB. I tried to boot the installer flash drive on an eMachines eTower from 2008 with 2GB RAM and despite disabling all prerequisite checks via LabConfig like all the other 'unsupported' hardware I installed it to, it refused to install. I thought the lack of RAM was halting it. I know Windows 10 runs on 2GB RAM since that's as far as I got on it. I planned to do an 'in-place' update but never got the time to do so.

Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 CPU
2GB DDR2 RAM
150GB 7200 RPM HDD
Nvidia GeForce 2 integrated with 2GB VRAM

I bypassed at the installer:

TPM check
HDD Space check
CPU Compatibility check
Secure Boot Check

No matter what, none of the hacks which enabled it to install on other 'unsupported' machines worked on this tower. The only difference is that this tower is the only one with 2GB RAM instead of 4GB+

This is the key.... "I know Windows 10 runs on 2GB RAM since that's as far as I got on it. I planned to do an 'in-place' update but never got the time to do so."

Install Win 10 on it first and then do an in-place upgrade to 11. I'm confident that will work. Should it fail, then when retrying the in-place upgrade, don't say "yes" to the prompt to download updates and drivers during the upgrade. (That taxes the RAM and storage of low-end systems)

 

[Ethosik]

If the store and Xbox app would just work, it would be great. I prefer 11 over 10 but when I can’t install anything from those two things it’s a big NO for me. And it’s shocking it happens on a fresh install - like Microsoft never tested the apps on a fresh install? Not sure if upgrade allows it to work.

 

[diamond.g]

If the store and Xbox app would just work, it would be great. I prefer 11 over 10 but when I can’t install anything from those two things it’s a big NO for me. And it’s shocking it happens on a fresh install - like Microsoft never tested the apps on a fresh install? Not sure if upgrade allows it to work.

It worked on my sons computer (fresh build: 3400G + 3060ti Win11 Home). Mine is an upgrade to 11 from Win10 Pro (5900X + 6900XT).

 

[nickdalzell1]

This is the key.... "I know Windows 10 runs on 2GB RAM since that's as far as I got on it. I planned to do an 'in-place' update but never got the time to do so."

Install Win 10 on it first and then do an in-place upgrade to 11. I'm confident that will work. Should it fail, then when retrying the in-place upgrade, don't say "yes" to the prompt to download updates and drivers during the upgrade. (That taxes the RAM and storage of low-end systems)

I already got Windows 10 on it. It runs poorly but runs nonetheless. I got busy since Spring was the start of the work season and I also got concerned it'd be a one way process--if it bricked the system there would be no way I'd try reinstalling Windows 10 as it was painful enough the first time.

If all else fails, I will just find a copy of Windows 7 for it.

As for the Xbox app, until they got full compatibility with ALL Xbox titles I will just stick with Steam, which does work. As for the store, and maybe I'm the last person on the planet left who feels this way, App Stores are for newbs or mobile OSs. Windows 7 functioned perfectly well without an app store so why is it suddenly deemed necessary today to have one? I don't even use Play Store on Android (disabled).

 

[diamond.g]

As for the Xbox app, until they got full compatibility with ALL Xbox titles I will just stick with Steam, which does work.

I think this highlights a branding problem MS has created for themselves. Calling it the xbox app clearly makes folks believe the same thing you do (that they can play all their xbox games, which clearly isn't true). I dunno what they can do at this point to fix this branding issue.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I was under the impression that Game Pass Ultimate meant that it'd be fully compatible especially given Windows 11's DirectX 12 support. The only thing setting Windows 10 back was being incompatible.

I remember when Xbox was just a 'game bar' and notification system for Windows 10 (much like SmartGlass was for Android). It was pretty bare bones in 2015. About all you could do with it then was view your friends' status, chat, get notications, sync achievements and earn them on certain titles available on the 'Windows Store' at the time, and so on.

That said, does anyone know when Xbox will get the SystemOS update to Windows 11? Mine still runs on the 'Windows 10 inspired' UI and has been since 2015. The only update it got within the last few months was a 250MB Security Patch.

 

[diamond.g]

I was under the impression that Game Pass Ultimate meant that it'd be fully compatible especially given Windows 11's DirectX 12 support. The only thing setting Windows 10 back was being incompatible.

I remember when Xbox was just a 'game bar' and notification system for Windows 10 (much like SmartGlass was for Android). It was pretty bare bones in 2015. About all you could do with it then was view your friends' status, chat, get notications, sync achievements and earn them on certain titles available on the 'Windows Store' at the time, and so on.

That said, does anyone know when Xbox will get the SystemOS update to Windows 11? Mine still runs on the 'Windows 10 inspired' UI and has been since 2015. The only update it got within the last few months was a 250MB Security Patch.

Nah Ultimate just means you can play (some) PC and Xbox games on their respective platform for "free". Otherwise the platform specific game pass sub is 5 dollars a month cheaper. As in if you only have a Series X there is no reason to buy GPU as the only value add is the PC games (I'd have to look to see if if the "base" subs include the cloud play).

 

[grmlin]

I was under the impression that Game Pass Ultimate meant that it'd be fully compatible especially given Windows 11's DirectX 12 support. The only thing setting Windows 10 back was being incompatible.

I remember when Xbox was just a 'game bar' and notification system for Windows 10 (much like SmartGlass was for Android). It was pretty bare bones in 2015. About all you could do with it then was view your friends' status, chat, get notications, sync achievements and earn them on certain titles available on the 'Windows Store' at the time, and so on.

That said, does anyone know when Xbox will get the SystemOS update to Windows 11? Mine still runs on the 'Windows 10 inspired' UI and has been since 2015. The only update it got within the last few months was a 250MB Security Patch.

How could a console game work on a PC? It's PC games, as stated by the Game Pass website.

Join Xbox Game Pass: Discover Your Next Favorite Game | Xbox

Play hundreds of high-quality games all for one low monthly price.

www.xbox.com

I think it's very confusing that the PC app is called Xbox though. Makes no sense, as your PC obviously isn't a Xbox. ?‍♂️ It should be called Game Pass or something.

 

[diamond.g]

How could a console game work on a PC? It's PC games, as stated by the Game Pass website.

Join Xbox Game Pass: Discover Your Next Favorite Game | Xbox

Play hundreds of high-quality games all for one low monthly price.

www.xbox.com

I think it's very confusing that the PC app is called Xbox though. Makes no sense, as your PC obviously isn't a Xbox. ?‍♂️ It should be called Game Pass or something.

Yeah they could name it Windows Games since it allows you to get games outside of Game Pass.


MS could allow you to play your xbox games on PC, since the XBox games are just VM's anyways. It would require hyper-v to be enabled, plus I suspect the hardware requirements would be higher than folks would suspect. Especially since xbox games typically to not have a settings menu to tone down stuff for weaker hardware (or maybe they force every game to run as the One S version).

 

[grmlin]

MS could allow you to play your xbox games on PC, since the XBox games are just VM's anyways. It would require hyper-v to be enabled, plus I suspect the hardware requirements would be higher than folks would suspect. Especially since xbox games typically to not have a settings menu to tone down stuff for weaker hardware (or maybe they force every game to run as the One S version).

I don't see that happening at any point. There are so many different PC configurations possible, a console game with it's very limited settings can't be magically mapped to this. It would be fun to see the Xbox version of for example Elden Ring running on an old PC without a modern GPU lol.

You can always use streaming though, not that I'm the biggest fan of Xcloud, I think Stadia does a much better job at streaming games, but it's an option at least.

 

[Ethosik]

How could a console game work on a PC? It's PC games, as stated by the Game Pass website.

Join Xbox Game Pass: Discover Your Next Favorite Game | Xbox

Play hundreds of high-quality games all for one low monthly price.

www.xbox.com

I think it's very confusing that the PC app is called Xbox though. Makes no sense, as your PC obviously isn't a Xbox. ?‍♂️ It should be called Game Pass or something.

I think because Xbox is headed towards a brand vs hardware name and we are just dealing with old terminology and history.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I would like to believe that a PC of any kind is far better specc'd than an Xbox. The 360 was actually running PowerPC gear! The more modern Xbox One (original version) has the specs of probably my eMachines from 2008. If anything, Xbox specific titles gimp graphics to compensate for limited hardware--Just play the Xbox One version of Farming Simulator '19. Zero Anti-Aliasing, anyone?

There's still this problem at work though, sadly Windows 11 hasn't fixed it. When we receive PDFs as email attachments, you can't download the attachment. You can only click it, and it tries asking for a Microsoft Account Login, then I enter my credentials (I have an Office 365 Personal) and it shows a page saying 'that didn't work' and something about my Microsoft Account not being in some kind of SharePoint database or something. This has happened before with Windows 10 and I figured it some kind of bug since the PC then only ran Office 2010.

This is a brand new laptop with the modern Office apps. I have no clue what SharePoint is, but for some reason even the simple act of downloading an email attachment is becoming a royal pain in the backside! We tried to email the person who sent it but they seem incapable of attaching a file without it going through Sharepoint, whatever that is. As a result, a vital service manual we needed to fix a golf car wasn't available. The boss has no microsoft account either. She also relies heavily on Yahoo! Mail (the AOL of mail) and I'm not sure where the bug is or how to overcome it. We are having a lot of trouble getting information these days due to this.

 

[grmlin]

I would like to believe that a PC of any kind is far better specc'd than an Xbox.

That simply doesn’t matter. A console is a closed and fixed system a game will be optimized for. A PC is nothing like that.

But that’s only a problem for older games, as almost everything releases everywhere anyway these days.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Microsoft owns the darned thing! You'd think since the Xbox OS is based on Windows 10 that there'd be far more compatibility with PC than say, an iPad vs. a Mac.

If you ever took apart an Xbox console it's pretty much a gimped PC. SATA interfaces, soldered DDR RAM, an Intel (or PowerPC in the case of the 360) CPU, etc. Even the hard drives can be used from a PC to replace the one inside it.

The PlayStation is a far more closed system in comparison. The Xbox is owned and made by Microsoft, and runs Microsoft software. Making 1x1 compatibility would be nothing for them. Also, games such as FNAF: Security Breach released in late 2021, yet isn't in the PC Game Pass. You can buy it on Steam, however. That's not exactly an older game, and neither are games such as Subnautica. At this point, what's the point of paying for the Game Pass Ultimate subscription if I have to buy all the good games on Steam anyway?

 

[grmlin]

That doesn’t matter as a PC kann literarily be everything, while a Xbox is a Xbox. Microsoft own Windows and the Xbox, but there are endless possibilities of hardware combinations.

Heck, PC games itself are having more than enough problems running good on every hardware. I honestly have no clue what you are talking about when you say that every PC is capable of running games that are made for Xbox. That makes no sense. If anything we should be allowed to run Windows software on Xboxes. That makes niche more sense.
I also don’t want to deal with settings and other nonsense. I love the simplicity of a console and abandoned PC gaming because of it.

BTW, the PS4/5 are more or less the same as a Xbox hardware wise. It’s just uses a different development environment and a custom OS (Linux I think). Games use cross platform engines anyway, the wild times of exotic console hardware like in the PS3 are over

 

[nickdalzell1]

An Xbox One has far lower specs than ANY modern PC. Any game running on Xbox already had to make huge graphical compensations to run on the console. That's one of the reason there's a big PC gaming community that makes fun of console owners and remarks about how there are far more mods and graphical options with PC games than living with a Console that cannot even be upgraded as the time passes.

The fact the games are on Steam means there's nothing stopping Microsoft from offering them on the PC Game Pass, as there are already a few titles there anyway. This is NOT an Xbox vs. PC Compatibility issue. The only thing stopping MS is their own arrogance.

As for the PlayStation, and maybe this has changed as of the PS5, but if you tried to put a regular old PC hard drive into a PS3 or PS4 it would not even boot or allow itself to start up. It would give you an error code. You can replace the HDD inside any Xbox and it would run fine. In fact, the HDD is perhaps the only real upgrade option for an older Xbox. You obviously cannot upgrade RAM or the GPU inside one. Don't even get me started on the way the homebrew community constantly gets screwed over by PlayStation every system update that comes out. The original PS3 could run older PS1 and PS2 games, and a system update bricked that option. Those who homebrewed the system to block such updates got blacklisted (and their consoles IP banned) from the PlayStation Network.

IF you're happy with the jaggies of zero anti-aliasing, zero Depth of Field, zero draw distances and various other graphical losses on console gaming, fine. But once I got blessed by PC Gaming (and the PC rig I built cost a lot less than the Series X Xbox One that can do 4K) and the amazing graphical opportunities (none of which require overclocking or configs but you have that choice) I couldn't go back to consoles. At best, the consoles remain only as media streaming boxes. In fact, that was the reason I bought a PS4, not to game, but to replace the Apple TV box.

 

[diamond.g]

As for the PlayStation, and maybe this has changed as of the PS5, but if you tried to put a regular old PC hard drive into a PS3 or PS4 it would not even boot or allow itself to start up. It would give you an error code. You can replace the HDD inside any Xbox and it would run fine. In fact, the HDD is perhaps the only real upgrade option for an older Xbox. You obviously cannot upgrade RAM or the GPU inside one.

To be fair you totally can replace the HDD in a PS3 or PS4 with an off the shelf unit (I did for the PS3, never bothered with PS4). It had to be reformatted, which in the case of the PS3 meant you had to reinstall the system FW.

With the PS5 you cannot replace the internal storage, only add to it, which again would require a reformat of the drive.

 

[nickdalzell1]

My PS3 refused to boot at all with an aftermarket HDD (the original died and the console YLoD'd). I had to buy one from Sony's website in the end. It outright refused to accept the 1TB drive I wanted to use to replace the old one.



As you can see, it doesn't even give you an option to even insert a disc containing the system software. It literally had no idea how to boot without its own HDD. I had only bought a SATA Seagate HDD from Best Buy and thought it'd work. It didn't. You get this error if you so much as try. Thank goodness you didn't have to tear the console apart just to get the HDD out. Place the old one back in it'd boot fine (assuming it was a good HDD--mine wasn't.)