Intel might have slipped that Windows 12 is indeed coming next year | Company CFO sees benefits of a coming "Windows Refresh"

new versions of windows just kind of feel like new phones now. It's good but.. who cares?

I can remember as a teen and upgrading from windows 98 to XP felt like jumping into the future.
Or, more recently, getting the first samsung galaxy after having a basic candybar phone.

Just seems like more of the same all while charging an arm and a leg for it.

Then xp to vista happened and it looked pretty but was unusable. Then 7 came out and it solved all the BS and was a relief. Then 8 came out and it looked pretty but was unusable. Nobody is quite sure what happened with 9 but 10 was ok I guess, better than 8. Then I started using Linux because I was sick of the bullshit.
- 9 was skipped because there was concern with old/lazily coded programs running in compatibility mode for Windows 9x versions.
  Basically, when the windows versions went from Win95/98/ME to 2000 and XP, some lazy programmers went “well by the time Windows 2090 rolls around I’ll be dead” and just had their programs check the windows version for a 9 when deciding whether or not to run in compatibility mode. If it detected a 9, then it would run in compatibility for 95/98/ME.
  Microsoft wanted to avoid this potential issue, so they just skipped version 9 altogether and jumped straight to 10.
- Regarding why they just jumped to 10, I subscribe to the theory that enough software that required XP or greater checked for OS compatibility by looking for the string "Windows 9*" to catch both 95 and 98
- Funny thing. The reputation of Vista is universal, so I don't doubt it at all. However, I ran Vista starting from beta and never had a problem with it. I must have had the magic hardware combination that worked. My least favourite Windows release was 8.
- The stuff that made Vista shitty to most end users wasn't truly fixed with W7. For the most part W7 was a marketing refresh after Vista had already been "fixed." Not saying that it was a small update or anything like that, just that the broken stuff had been more or less fixed.
  Vista's issues at launch were almost universally a result of the change to the driver model. Hardware manufacturers, despite MS delaying things for them, still did not have good drivers ready at release. They took years after the fact to get good, stable, drivers out there. By the time that happened, Vista's reputation as a pile of garbage was well cemented. W7 was a good chance to reset that reputation while also implementing other various major upgrades.
- I finally jumped onto the linux train after the rumour that windows 11 was going to have ads right in windows explorer. I'm glad it never happened but now that i'm on linux for my main PC.. i see no reason to go back.
- In the programming world, versions with a 9 as a major digit, or most significant minor digit, are considered bad luck. Windows 95 and 98 aren't considered amongst that bad luck thing though, as they were actually versions 4.0 and 4.1, respectively. 95 and 98 were named after the year they were released, but their internal version numbers did not include a 9. Windows ME was a disaster though, and it's version number was 4.9...
  It's kinda like how people are superstitious about the number 13, programmers are now superstitious about version numbers with a 9 in the version number now. Windows ME probably at least partly started that.
  But hey, that's just coming from many years of experience with technology starting from the mid 90's and also a handful of articles I've read over about it, who really knows though?
  I do believe that version numbers with a 9 in them lead the end users to think "Hey, this is a 0.9, 1.9, 9, whatever, when are they gonna fix all the bugs and release the 1.0, 2.0, 10.0, etc..."
May not be more of the same this time around
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-might-want-to-be-making-windows-12-a-subscription-os-suggests-leak/
- The very start of that article:
  October 6 Update: A newly published report has clarified that the discovered code bits are not related to Windows "12." Also, the next-gen Windows version will not require a subscription.

Isn't windows 11 still... unfinished?

Everything is unfinished in Microsoft world. Not even joking.
I’m not thinking about upgrading until W11 is 50-60% market share and they actually have to take bugs seriously
- I bought a Dell XPS for work with a 12th gen Intel Evo CPU that came with Windows 11 and it ran like absolute dog shit. Slow, poor battery life, etc. I reinstalled 11 from scratch with an MS ISO to remove any Dell bloatware and it was actually worse. I ran the "old" Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and downgraded (through the upgrade option, ha) and it has been running great for months ever since. The Evo platform isn't even supposed to work fully on 10, and definitely not run faster or with better battery life. That's the inverse of what should have happened. Also, the bugs went away and I got a functional Windows Explorer back without having to pay for fucking third-party start menu software.
  E: clarity
Is any piece of software ever truly finished?
- Not when its from ms

As long as 10 is supported, I'm not updating. At least I'm not hammered with ads like on 11.

If 10 is sunset, I'll probably switch back to Linux. I rarely game on my laptop anyway.

Out of like 1000 games I can play about 997 on linux, you'll probably be fine on linux even gaming now
- I don't understand Linux, but gaming on my steam deck is amazing and occasionally runs games better than my much more powerful windows computer.
Microsoft already announced Windows 10 will no longer be supported in Oct 2025
If you game via Steam, there's a good chance you can use their Proton layer to play Windows games on Linux.
- Ive played wow on linux without an issue as well
  Lutris is great!
  Installation was a bit tricky but following the guide.. easy peasy.
My gaming rig is linux and it’s only sorta inconvenient
- How dumb can a person be and still use Linux for gaming? I'm open to switching from Windows but am only marginally technical so I don't wanna bite off more than I can chew
It is a healthy way to look at it, since by the time 10 isn't supported, 11 will be relatively bug free.

windows 11 isnt even the majority of installs yet and they're trying to push for windows 12? They tried doing "windows as a service" with Windows 10 but that never really manifested either.

I know people whine that Linux users always harp on about Linux, but there's a better alternative to having a £100 tax on every new laptop you buy, or having to buy a new license every time you upgrade a PC a little too much in one go. Or being locked out of security updates because you dont want to subject your system to adware.

And with the Steam Deck entering the picture, we have a huge company like valve making it even easier to jump ship now. Its the ship jump I used
- I love how it’s not even Valve directly, they just threw a huge pile of cash at the Wine team and said “go nuts”, and it’s been a boon for the entirely community.
Microsoft might be leaning into an old reputation. Windows 95 was crap, Windows 98 fixes it. Windows ME was crap, Windows XP fixes it. Windows Vista was crap, Windows 7 fixes it.
They might be expecting that people think Windows 11 was crap in the same way Windows ME or Vista was crap, and they'll flock to Windows 12. But it's not like Windows 11 is horribly broken like that. The actual problem is that Windows 11 doesn't give many compelling reasons to upgrade over 10, and it has a bunch of useless bloat.
As a developer, having WSL2 open up X11 apps without having to jump through hoops of running an X server on Windows is quite nice. Other than that, I don't know why I'd bother.
- In actuality 98 was crap until SE and XP was crap until SP2.
I don't think Microsoft charges OEMs remotely close to full price for OEM licenses, so it's more like a $10 tax, but I agree with everything else here
- Its lower. Businesses basically pay a subscription for the ability to generate keys. So of course if you have a large business, the subscription is trivial in the grand scale of things.
  Its similar to how game companies work with pc cafes in asia. They dont pay for all the games they host, some they pay a sub to generate accounts for people who pay for the cafe rental times. Its a vital feature for paid games with a focus on multiplayer (e.g Overwatch 1 worked like that in China)
- Probably depends on the SKU (They probably give discounts if you preinstall) but for some Lenovo models where the OS is optional the price to the consumer is £80 which is 75% a typical license.
Yeah pretty weird, considering 11 still feels kinda half baked.
Didn't the same happen with Windows 7 and 8.1?
Most were still using 7 when 10 was released.
Microsoft and the consumers will be fine.
And no, it still isn't the year of Linux. Back in 2016 it had somewhat of a chance, but not anymore. And neither with the Windows 12 launch, sorry.
- Sure but 8 and 8.1 were famously unpopular though (even though I personally enjoyed the Metro design language).
  Windows 11 seems to be received generally well, but what's the push to upgrade now? Windows 10 being as good as it was has turned it into another 7/XP.
  It's gonna be a slowwwww march for any alternative but Windows doesnt have the benefit of being the best by default anymore -- it has to work for it.
- The steam deck got me used to Linux, I personally am never going back to Windows

I haven't even bothered "upgrading" to windows 11 because it still looks terrible.

My work computers have it installed so I use it all the time it's not bad, it just doesn't bring anything good to the table. It's basically a visual update.
- Yeah, but I dislike the visual update.
- The one thing I love is the new snapping options of you hover over the maximize button.
So with zero first hand experience then? You're refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
Sure, you're well within your right to do so, but it's not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. Windows 11 has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I'm on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I've not had any issues with windows 11 since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it's cool nowadays to moan about Microsoft products when the reality just doesn't reflect those complaints.
Try it out for yourself. It's actually a really good OS: I prefer it over MacOS Sonoma anyday. My dad, who is 'afraid' to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier Win11 is to use than Win10.
If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you've made an informed decision!
- I have it on my work PC, I was talking about not installing it on my home PC.
- That's great, but there are valid concerns about other people's use cases
  I can't install it on my laptop because it has a hard drive. Immediately not something you can use - it scans files out of the box, making the system unusable. It doesn't let you just disable it without taking drastic steps, but disabling some features requires group policy. If you use some hacks to disable things, randomly other things break. For example, disabling the firewall breaks Windows Update (?!)
  The last good version was Windows 7 where you could actually do 99% of things you wanted with Home edition without any issue.
- just because you like it doesn't mean I have to enjoy using the spyware and windows 11 has been way worse for gaming then 10
- My computer is 11 and I hate it more than any previous windows. Each newer version of windows removes features that previous ones had and makes customizing more and more annoying to do. Now that the Steam Deck has got me used to Linux, I wont be coming back to Windows whenever I upgrade my desktop
- So with zero first hand experience then You're refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
  Sure, you're well within your right to do so, but it's not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. RedStar OS has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I'm on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I've not had any issues with RedStar OS since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it's cool nowadays to moan about North Korea products when the reality just doesn't reflect those complaints.
  Try it out for yourself. It's actually a really good OS: I prefer it over Windows anyday. My dad, who is 'afraid' to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier RedStar 11 is to use than RedStar 10.
  If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you've made an informed decision!
  Thank you, ChatGPT.

I see no compelling reason to accept this "upgrade."

That's why it'll end up beig forced on people. Just like what's happened with 11. And 10 before it. Didn't happen to everyone, but there were lots of complaints about it happening.
- If it's forced and also needs a subscription, quite a lot of people will leave for the alternatives.
- And 7 before it. And XP before it... Moot point really.

A new version of windows coming next year isn’t really shocking news.

But Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version, they said so. 🙄
- It was for me.
  I use Arch btw.
- Microsoft’s marketing department be like “no fucking way you’re getting rid of major version numbers. I don’t care if you’re just tacking shit onto Windows 10, people spend money when there is a big splashy number or release name.”
I dont find it shocking but I do find it odd they'd release a new one so soon. Hasn't W11 only been out for a year or so?
- October 2021, so two years
- ... pretty much proof positive that win 12 will be subscription-based IMO

Fucking fix your bloated background service's, every update they add more and more services and background applications that serve little purpose, like the touch screen service that's running on my fucking desktop that only has a mouse and keyboard

another thing that annoyed me was the useless setting page, when control panel worked fine.
especially since you end up needing to get to control panel to do anything anyway
- Don't worry! Control panel is being slowly phased out in favor of the settings.
Do you know where I can find a good list of all the Windows bloatware I can delete? I got most of the obvious ones but I'm thinking of less known ones like 3D viewer

I wonder if they will provide a "Windows 13" after that.

And another thing in Windows I am waiting for is the moment when they encrypt all your data "for security", then blackmail you into a subscription service where you can only access your files while you pay your monthly dues. And how long it will take for this being hacked in a way that hackers, microsoft, and the relevant government agencies can all read your data, and you can not.

That won't happen, or they will get banned in the entire EU.
- That would be nice, but it won't happen. Too many things are sadly hanging on "runs on windows".

Any bets on this Refresh not supporting 8th-gen and below Intel chips except the Surface Studio for “reasons”?

Still peeved my 5930K isn't supported, despite still being petty capable.

But why.

I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the TPM requirement to increase adoption
- True but basically everything hardware-wise has tpm now. Probably just let the rest of the stuff age-out

~~windows refresh~~ cash grab

Thank god my PC doesn't have a TPM.

Otherwise, I am just waiting for some industrial software to be usable on Linux (they're migrating now!) so I can finally drop Windows for good.

Why would you thank God your PC doesn't have a useful hardware feature?
- What advantage does a TPM chip hold for me as a user? In most cases it seems to be used to take control away from me.
if you have a decent cpu it probably has a tpm, which is pretty useful in both windows and linux. like secure passwordless (or data-at-rest) drive encryption

Pop! OS is great.

I like Gentoo, but Opensuse Thumbleweed is good alternative
Pop OS is the whole reason I stayed on linux :) Lots of failed linux experiments in its wake previous to that haha

If not 12, an incremental patch release to 11 as a "revamp" version they've done with all the others, but no significant changes. Meh.

I have been using Linux since the windows 8 days, and still see no reason to return.

How do you recognise a Linux user ?
No need to do anything they will tell you immediately
- So you got Windows, Mac, and Linux. Which of the three options would you like suggested to you as an alternative to Windows? Lol. I guess I'll suggest Windows so you can just continue dealing with whatever Microsoft decides to subject you to. Or an Apple computer which people will berate me for because of the cost and the closed garden ecosystem. Or Linux and then get this comment again. Why am I even commenting lawl
Cool story bro

Maybe they'll move to the MacOSX model with friendly-named feature updates, but otherwise I don't see Windows 12 coming out next year.

Refresh bloat.

Isn't it more likely that the Intel cfo is just frothing at the mouth about the end of windows 10 support likely forcing people to buy new cpus that meet the windows 11 requirements?