Microsoft – Page 9 – Paul's Tech Talk

3 alternatives OS to use instead of Windows 11

PaulJuly 12, 2021

Windows 11 and Secure Boot

Some of the hardware people have will not be able to run Windows 11. Microsoft has said they will stop updating Windows 10 in 2025. This will leave people in hardware limbo because there system is still quite fast and works perfectly well. I thought today we would talk about some other operating to use that might work for you and not require you to have secure boot, which Windows 11 will required. I’ve talked a little about secure boot in my previous post. So I am sure Microsoft is doing this to get more Windows 11 revenue. After all if you have to upgrade your hardware you will most likely have to get a new key from them unless you try to call them and get a free one because you tell them you had to upgrade. It could work you just have to upgrade the system and when the system boots back up, you have to call and validate that you are using your system. I think you’ll allowed one or two times like this before you have to go and buy another 100$ key. I really don’t know if it will, but it is a way around paying for a new key.

Linux All the Way

This will be a Linux post about the different OS you can use that are free. I am sure you could go buy a Mac and be happy with that also. Any way it goes, this will at least help not waste the hardware you have and let you use it even longer than you thought you could. I will always be one of those who advocates for a free OS. Linux seems to be the only OS that will do the job after Windows 11 is released and Windows 10 is retired so I am hopeful people will at least look into using Linux as an Alternative.

Ubuntu

As you can see Ubuntu can look almost like Windows 11. I wonder if Windows 11 got the idea from Ubuntu or from Apple. Any which way, you can customize Ubuntu and have the Start menu anyway you like it. So You have full control of what you can do with it and how to use it. In a way, I like to say that this is the easiest to learn. It’s pretty easy to start using it and still be able to browse the web and other things. Once you get your feet wet per say. You’ll be looking for other OS that might be more of your tastes but this is a good choice.

Download Ubuntu

Linux Mint

I personally love Linux Mint and use it more and more. I have been playing around with it in terms of playing games like Microsoft Flight Simulator. You can do a lot with Linux Mint and I like it because of what you can do with it. You can play games on it that you think you wouldn’t be able to play on Linux or even run video editing programs that you thought would only run on a MAC or windows. In the End, Linux seems to be getting more and more useful. I think in the end Microsoft and Apple will always be competing with Linux due to the universality of what you can do with it.

Download Linux Mint

Manjaro

Manjaro is the last one I suggest looking into for those that are new to Linux. it has been one of those that has started growing the last few years. As you can see they also can let you customize the windows and how you the look of it can be. I’ve only tried this Distro for a while and went back to Linux mint.

Download Manjaro

I like Linux Mint much better than any other one that may come my way. I like it due to it’s look and how well it works out of the box but I am sure there is more Distros out there. There are so many distros out there that I like to look at distrowatch for any new and upcoming distros that I might like to try and look into because you never know when there is one that will do something better than another Linux. Which Distro do you like the most and why? I’d love to hear your opinions on this and what your thoughts are on Windows 11. Why not leave a comment and tell me your experiences.

How to install Windows 11 on a given system.

PaulJuly 10, 2021

Install Windows 11

It’s not as easy as it seems. Ever since Microsoft has told us what the requirements will be for Windows 11, there will be more than that for you to use Windows 11. Some of the issues some users are having is going from non-secure boot to changing the partition to secure boot. The problems associated has been far a wide for the people who are in the Preview program. So what do you really need to do to install Windows 11. I am will talk about some of the things you will probably need to do to get it to work on your system.

Gigabyte Motherboards

I currently have a B460M DS3H AC and finding Secure boot for my motherboard isn’t as easy as it seems. I had to first update my bios from factory default to the latest. You can download the bios for this motherboard and flash the motherboard with the latest bios updates. It seems the latest bios F5B bios update has secure boot automatically enabled but for those who do not want to update their bios to the latest version. In order to get secure to work on your motherboard you have to go to Advanced settings > Boot Menu. Once there, you will need to scroll down to CSM and I needed to disable that to get secure boot to work. Once that is down you can now have access to secure boot.

Converting your Partition

If you are like me have a MBR(Master Boot Record) partition than you will need to convert to GPT(GUID Partition Table) partition, in order to be able to run in secure boot. There is a tool that can do that for you call MBR2GPT offered by Microsoft to be able to convert your partition to GPT. Once you do this, than you can enable secure boot and have it ready for Windows 11. Since we are talking about the preview build and not the actual build I can only sumeize that it will be required with Windows 11 when it is finally active. It will be a long and hard process for many because there are several reasons why someone won’t want to go to GPT partition. I haven’t decided if I will or not but I wanted to show you how to install Windows 11 preview if you are one of those who wanted to try Windows 11 but didn’t have the necessary system setup the right to be able to install it.

Still not Compatible

If you are still having problems figuring out why you can’t install Windows. There is a Great little tool that will tell you what you have or don’t have enabled or what hardware you are missing to be able to install Windows 11 and what you might need to do to get all the requirements for Windows 11. In the end, this will at least help those who want to install Windows 11. I’m still not sure if I will but at least you can now know what you need to do to be able to install Windows 11.

What is a TPM and why do you need to know you have one?

PaulJuly 8, 2021

Trusted Platform Module

Everything about TPM screams security and ominous, some would call it. I am sure everyone is thinking about this and wondering, why Microsoft is doing this. We’ve heard them say it is a requirement and thus far it seems to be a sure as gold that it will be a necessity to be able to upgrade to Windows 11. So what is a TPM. According to Wikipedia,

“[TPM] is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys”

In other words, it basically is a hard encryptions and not a software encryption in your system. If you have bitlocker without TPM, than your system has to decrypt and encrypt files on the fly and slow your system down. If you had a TPM onboard it would be much faster and much safer because there would be no way a Man in the Middle attack could work, not saying it will never happen but I think it is far less likely.

Windows 11 Requirement

If you haven’t figure out if you have it on your motherboard. There are several websites where they talk about how to find out if you already have a TPM on your Motherboard. The real problem is if you haven’t no TPM and would like to be able to install Windows 11 on your computer. There are several options you can do. I’ll list them for you:

Install a Motherboard that has TPM
Check to see if you can Enable TPM on your current Motherboard
Install a TPM chip to be able to use Windows 11. Check out my Affiliate link if you need one!
Keep Windows 10 until the end of life which will be Year October 2025.

Scalpers a plenty

Scalping has seen an increase all over the net. When Microsoft, released the information needed to upgrade to Windows 11. It seemed to bring out the people who will charge even more than what you should be paying for it. Obviously they did the same thing with Graphics Unit Processors in the past, they seemed to do the same thing with TPM Chips to install on Motherboards and other such systems. I’m seeing more places that it cost more than you’d paid normally for a chip. So that is problem now with people wanting to get ready for Windows 11, there seems to be more people trying to make a buck out of this. In the end, they will get out of trying to make a buck because the demand will drop and we won’t have to worry about this anymore.

Will Microsoft start watching you on Windows 11?

PaulJuly 3, 2021

Microsoft Requirements

According to Microsoft requirement page for Windows 11, you will need to have some of these things enable to be able to install it. Let me show you what I see of the top and maybe even read between the lines:

You will be required to have internet connectivity for Windows 11 Home.
The System will need to be TPM Enabled. (If you have an NVME, You probably already have a TPM on your system.)
Microsoft Edge will be the Default Browser (That’s was expected by me)
Taskbar Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed. (I heard there is a Hack for this).
Required to have at least two cores to be able to install Windows 11.
Apps can no longer customize areas of the Taskbar. (I am not sure what they mean by this but it will probably change the app development in the future.)

So who’s watching you?

I have a few issues with this requirement for one, the need to require to have an internet access to for first boot. There will be people in countries who have no access to internet or people who don’t want to be tracked by Microsoft. That is something I am cautious about when it comes to booting into Windows. I don’t want Microsoft to know what I am doing or have access to any of the data that I am during with their system. I specifically make sure that is what I want by opting out of those features when I installed Windows 10. I turned off those features before I even started using Windows 10. I might just be one of those who was security aware of the problems associated with leaking my personal information or having someone watch what I am doing online. I know I don’t have privacy online but I do try to protect what I can when I can.

WIndows 11 Pro?

Granted, Windows 11 Home is the only thing they say requires internet connection, I am curious to see what the requirements are for Windows 11 Pro. Will I need to do all this for the Professional versions also? Until Then, I will keep with Windows 10 Pro(*Get the OEM version for $21.96 USD* Affiliate Link), because I don’t have to worry about logging into Windows 10 with my Microsoft account. Even though, I am using skype and other features that I log into. I am however not giving them much information as I could be. Although, As I am looking at the business side of Windows 11, I do not see the requirement for needing an internet connection to run Windows 11 Business. I think that is what you call the Professional edition. Either way, I’ll wait and see what happens in the future and see what the requirements are.

Are you going to use Windows 11? What do you think about it? Why not leave a comment and tell me what your thoughts are about Windows 11?

How to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Steam version on Linux Mint 20.1

PaulJune 30, 2021

Run Microsoft Flight Simulator

I’ve been trying to get this to work the last few days on Linux because of Windows 11 set to come out in the follow months. However, I was also wondering if this would work on Linux as it should be able to to do. As you know steam has some great ways to run windows games on it. The problem that most people have is just to figure out the right way to run it. I am here to help those who might still be having difficulty in running Msfs2020(Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) on Linux because it seems to have so many people having issues with running it. According to ProtonDB, This game should be playable with Gold standards which means it should run perfectly after some tweaks. I don’t know about the rest of you but It’s more than some tweaks but I digress.

Install wine

The First step you will need to do is check out my other post about installing Wine on Linux Mint. If you followed those instructions you are half way to getting it to run on Linux. You’ll however want to install all the Wine DB and API’s that are associated with Wine to get it to work. That includes but not limited to Q4wine, Playonlinux, Winetricks, All Wine Compatibility layers(Windows-Desktop-files also), Wine-binfmt and the API layers that is associated with Wine. I found sometimes they don’t automatically install these but they are necessary for several other games.

Install Graphics Drivers

Go to your driver manager app and make sure you have the GPU driver for your system. I currently have a NVIDIA 1660 Super and an Intel 10-850 Core. First I’d try the recommended but we’ll discuss this at the end. Always download the recommended driver on Linux Mint but if you have a different Linux and want to download the NVIDIA drivers, check out the NVIDIA Unix Drivers for them to work with your system. If you have an AMD GPU, you can visit the AMD website for your Linux Driver. Once those are installed, you will probably need to reboot your system to make sure your drivers are active when playing on Steam or other games. Each time there is an update, it will probably be a good idea to reboot just to make sure the drivers you want are being used by the system.

Install Steam

It seems Linux Mint 20.1 or some earlier version installs the Flathub version of Steam when they install Linux Mint. Uninstall that version first, I’ve found that it doesn’t do as a good as a job as the one you can get from the package manager. I also found that it won’t run some games with Proton. So that is the reason I say, just go ahead and uninstall it and install the real one. This is the easy part of the installation. Once done you are more than halfway there to be able to play your games like you want.

Download and Install Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Once you have steam, You can now go ahead and download and install MSFS2020 into steam. This will be a quick process. Steam however will not allow you to download the game until you enable proton. Go over to the Gear icon in steam and left click properties and go to Comparability tab. I’d recommend trying Proton 5.13-6 first because that is what everyone else used to get it to work on their systems according to the ProtonDB. Once you do that, you’ll be able to download MSFS20 and install it. Once installed, you’ll also want to add ‘-FastLaunch’ to the Launch options. Once done with that, hit the little “X” button and try clicking the play button and seeing if it will run.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes each system is a little bit different. So I’ll talk about ways you can tweak it to get it to work on your system. Some things to try:

Get a New or Older version of the GPU driver
Change the Proton version to a New or Older version or try the experimental version.
Check your Wine Settings(Although I didn’t have to do much with mine just install and try to run the q4wine once that was ran. I didn’t do anything else but quit the program.)
Check the ProtoDB to see what everyone else has done to get the game to run.

I suggest making one change at a time and seeing if the game will run after the change. If it is a GPU driver change, I suggest rebooting to make sure you are using the GPU driver you want to try to run with the program. Also Don’t expect the game to run as smoothly as it does on Windows so be thoughtful when you are playing the game. Sometimes there will be crashes and other things going on. You can however try different configurations to see if you can resolve those issues also. If you like this post please consider buying something from my affiliate list to support my blog and my time in write.