this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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353
What I learned from 3 years of running Windows 11 on “unsupported” PCs (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

You’re safer on win10 even after they stop supporting it than win11.

That's just not true. An actual spectre/meltdown/etc exploit is much less likely than you run-of-the-mill virus or whatever, so if you're not getting security updates to your OS and apps, you'll be much worse off than the fringe case of a theoretical attack.

So that part is just flat out wrong.

Either upgrade your hardware or run Linux, don't run outdated software on anything that touches the internet.

[–] parpol 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Security updates means patches against exploits like spectre/meltdown, not antivirus updates. You'll still be getting antivirus updates on windows 10.

Which means that until such an exploit has been discovered, windows 10 would be safer than windows 11 since windows 10 does have a countermeasure against spectre/meltdown while windows 11 doesn't. Windows 11 literally does not provide security updates to unsupported computers, and the exploits are already known.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

windows 10 would be safer than windows 11

Virus protection is a lot different than security patches, and there are a lot more exploits than hardware-level exploits. Virus protection can limit the mechanisms that security holes can be exploited, but they aren't proactive, but reactive, so by the time your antivirus detects a virus, you have already been exploited, and it's possible you have been exploited for some time. Antivirus checkers don't catch everything, and they can be delayed in catching issues for quite some time.

On the whole, I think Windows 11 would be safer than Windows 10 because:

  • almost nobody uses Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, so the attacks in the wild will be much less common
  • a lot of people will use Windows 10 on supported hardware after SW support ends, so any zero-days will remain unpatched at the OS level, so you'll be vulnerable to any new viruses using older exploits; the longer you use unsupported SW, the more viruses will be created to exploit it

If I had a friend/family member considering using Windows 11 w/ unsupported hardware, I would give them these options:

  • upgrade their hardware - I'll help them pick out something or upgrade what they have
  • use something other than Windows - some flavor of Linux, most likely

Remaining on Windows 10 is unacceptable because it'll get more insecure the longer they use it, and using Windows 11 on unsupported hardware is unacceptable because they're vulnerable to bugs in unsupported hardware. That said, I think Windows 11 on unsupported hardware will be more secure than Windows 10 w/o software updates on supported hardware.