On 1/5/2024 4:25 PM, sticks wrote:

I got so much great help on this simple post I made asking for locations
to look for systems to buy, it has been a little overwhelming. But, I
learned alot in the process, and appreciate the knowledge coming from
this place. I did buy a system over the weekend, and will just use this
post to respond and explain what happened.

> I've been looking at systems that can run 11,
> but have 10 installed.  It is a little work finding out if they qualify,
> but doable.

At first TPM2 seemed to be the main sticking point. What I kinda found
out was that the CPU requirements really directed what was going to have
a Win 10 or a Win 11 operating system loaded on the refurbish. If it
had an 8th gen intel processor or later on it, they all had windows 11.
Up to Gen 6 or 7 usually had Windows 10. So I then had to follow
through on looking at Windows 11 on the laptop I had and further
investigate installs on less than optimal systems, those that had to be
tweaked.

> The research I've done on 11 requirements, particularly TPM2, have
> raised a question or two.  It seems most things produced after 2016
> would have it, though might not be setup in the bios.  That narrows down
> the list of possible systems.  My laptop, for example, has a drive that
> has 11 loaded, but I have not yet checked to see if it actually does get
> updates to the operating system.  One of the things I read was that the
> registry tweak you can do to trick it into thinking it has TPM2 can
> often lead to a loaded Windows 11, that fails to update.  I shall have
> to see about that.

So the laptop I have has only a 2nd generation cpu, a i5-2410M. I
purchased the parts for it because I needed a new board. However, it
also came with an additional Win 11 680 GB hard drive identical to the
one I have with Win 10. I spent some time looking at the 11 system
working and found some interesting things.
First, it does not appear to be a "regular" 11 update. It says it is:
Windows 11-UltraLite TeamOs Edition. I had no idea what that was.
It has Winaero installed, has none of the registry hacks in the MoSetup
folder, and does not show the windows update options in the Privacy &
Security/Windows Security settings page.
There isn't a lot of info on this TeamOS, but it appears to be a
"piracy" group that modifies and deletes some of the system stuff to
give a small footprint version of an operating system. They've
evidently done this for the other MS Windows versions too. This hard
drive only had 6.64 GB used after the operating install, Firefox,
Chrome, Winaero, and whatever else I missed. That seemed kinda small to
me. Having not yet seen a true windows 11 running, I don't really know
what all they scrapped in their build.

So, I was unable to see if it did updates on the operating system,
because of however this thing installs. There is a place to supposedly
click on updates on or off, but it doesn't appear to do anything. When
you go to the Windows Security tab in settings, it just slides over to a
blank space....nothing there. So, I fail to see how upgrading to
windows 11 using this Team OS method is of any use if it won't even do
security updates. I will probably image my win 10 system to this drive
and do a real 11 upgrade, probably with the reg hack, to see if it will
run and update. However, in the end it is probably irrelevant since
just because it is allowed now, it still doesn't answer the question of
whether or not Microsoft will allow them to update in the future.
What I did see, though, I was not a big fan of. Not that I couldn't get
it worked out all to my liking, but that the MIL would not like it and
it would be an issue.

So I decided in the end the additional cost of getting a Win 11 capable
machine ( around $100 more), buying a Win 10 license and installing
that, was just not worth it for her.

I ended up getting her a Dell OptiPlex 7040, with 6th gen i5, 32 GB of
DDR4 ram, a new 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, a spinning 2TB HDD, AX200 Built in
WIFI 6 & Bluetooth 5.2, and a new 20" monitor with built-in speakers.
The whole cost was right at $290. I think between the cpu and the 32 GB
ram, she's gonna be very happy for now.

Thanks everyone for the help!

--
Stand With Israel!
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unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:

> I ended up getting her a Dell OptiPlex 7040, with 6th gen i5, 32 GB of
> DDR4 ram, a new 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, a spinning 2TB HDD, AX200 Built in
> WIFI 6 & Bluetooth 5.2, and a new 20" monitor with built-in speakers.
> The whole cost was right at $290. I think between the cpu and the 32 GB
> ram, she's gonna be very happy for now.

Where did you find that one? Included the monitor?

Oops, nevermind. Found:

http://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/optiplex-7040-desktop_owners-manual_en-us.pdf

which says it supports TPM 1.2. Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0. Windows
12 is expected to have the same requirement. So, she'll be using Win10
on that box until she gets another computer.

Hopefully she has her own powered speakers. Those in the monitor are
poor. Not even worth using as a mid-channel.

On 1/8/2024 12:36 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> I ended up getting her a Dell OptiPlex 7040, with 6th gen i5, 32 GB of
>> DDR4 ram, a new 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, a spinning 2TB HDD, AX200 Built in
>> WIFI 6 & Bluetooth 5.2, and a new 20" monitor with built-in speakers.
>> The whole cost was right at $290. I think between the cpu and the 32 GB
>> ram, she's gonna be very happy for now.
>
> Where did you find that one? Included the monitor?

2 separate purchases. The box a refurb, the monitor was new.

> Oops, nevermind. Found:
>
> http://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/optiplex-7040-desktop_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
>
> which says it supports TPM 1.2. Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0. Windows
> 12 is expected to have the same requirement. So, she'll be using Win10
> on that box until she gets another computer.

I'm fairly certain the reg hacks could get it by on both the TPM2 and
the CPU requirements. I'll try it out on my laptop with a 2nd gen CPU
and which I am unsure of the the TPM capabilites of yet. But like I
said, it really is irrelevant now if it does work, cause there is no
point in upgrading if Microsoft won't let you do security updates in the
future.

> Hopefully she has her own powered speakers. Those in the monitor are
> poor. Not even worth using as a mid-channel.

She's been using the laptop speakers for years, so whatever the monitor
comes with will be at least as good, if not better than what she is used
to. Plus, she's older and doesn't crank it up like I do. 8-)
I had actually forgotten about needing sound when I first looked and
bought a monitor without speakers. I know I could have gotten a cheap
set of desktop speakers, but figured I'd keep it as simple for her as
possible, so I cancelled the one I had bought the night before and found
one that had built-in speakers.

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 1/8/2024 1:24 PM, sticks wrote:
> On 1/8/2024 12:36 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> sticks <wolverine01@charter.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I ended up getting her a Dell OptiPlex 7040, with 6th gen i5, 32 GB of
>>> DDR4 ram, a new 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, a spinning 2TB HDD, AX200 Built in
>>> WIFI 6 & Bluetooth 5.2, and a new 20" monitor with built-in speakers.
>>> The whole cost was right at $290.  I think between the cpu and the 32 GB
>>> ram, she's gonna be very happy for now.
>>
>> Where did you find that one?  Included the monitor?
>
> 2 separate purchases.  The box a refurb, the monitor was new.
>
>> Oops, nevermind.  Found:
>>
>> http://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/optiplex-7040-desktop_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
>>
>> which says it supports TPM 1.2.  Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0.  Windows
>> 12 is expected to have the same requirement.  So, she'll be using Win10
>> on that box until she gets another computer.
>
> I'm fairly certain the reg hacks could get it by on both the TPM2 and
> the CPU requirements.  I'll try it out on my laptop with a 2nd gen CPU
> and which I am unsure of the the TPM capabilites of yet.  But like I
> said, it really is irrelevant now if it does work, cause there is no
> point in upgrading if Microsoft won't let you do security updates in the
> future.
>
>> Hopefully she has her own powered speakers.  Those in the monitor are
>> poor.  Not even worth using as a mid-channel.
>
> She's been using  the laptop speakers for years, so whatever the monitor
> comes with will be at least as good, if not better than what she is used
> to.  Plus, she's older and doesn't crank it up like I do.  8-)
> I had actually forgotten about needing sound when I first looked and
> bought a monitor without speakers.  I know I could have gotten a cheap
> set of desktop speakers, but figured I'd keep it as simple for her as
> possible, so I cancelled the one I had bought the night before and found
> one that had built-in speakers.

Delivered the new/used Win 10 box to the MIL and WOW was she happy. So
much faster and usable than the laptop she was using. Got all the Win
10 updates, synced her Firefox, got her IMAP Thunderbird mail client
going. Even downloaded her favorite game and got that up and running.
With her watching, I took a final "Original" macrium image and showed
her how that will back up everything in the middle of the night.

Time and money spent was well worth it when I see how happy this ol'
lady is!

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.