Windows 11 – Paul's Tech Talk

The Failures of Board manufacturers and Windows 11

PaulOctober 18, 2021

Motherboard BIOS

Don’t try to understand the system but rather see it as a broke system and try to fix it. When Windows 11 came out, you can bet everyone who was wanted the next version of Windows wanted it so they can test it out. The real problem is Windows 11 made every one get into their BIOS and figure out what needed to be turned on. Motherboard manufacturers each have their own way of creating the BIOS settings. They like to call it something you might not know about or even want to try to understand. Just like enabling TMP can be hard to find since Intel and AMD uses different wording such as PTT (Intel Platform Trusted Technology) for Intel and fTPM (Firmware Trusted Platform Module) for AMD. Even this can be frustrating for even the most seasoned IT guy. There is so many Mother Manufacturers out there, from MSI to ASRock. according to Wikipedia there is at least 7 to 15 different manufacturers of Motherboards. So each one will make the Bios Menu’s just a little bit different. It can be quite hard to figure out where you might need to go to enable something or disable something in bios.

The Failure of all parts

It isn’t every time I see Microsoft releases a new OS that I wonder just how much the consumer will suffer from the new systems requirements. Most of the time the requirements were not that big of a deal but with Windows 11, we now need to enable TPM and Secure boot for systems that may or may not have the requirements to run Windows 11. This to me just seem an arbitrary requirement because we’ve seen people run Windows 11 on a system that doesn’t have a TPM. Microsoft says this is for security but I can’t see this being for consumers. I’ve talked about how Windows 11 will fail, and I still think this will happen eventually once people see If Windows is worth upgrading.

The PrintNightmare

With the recent Windows updates the last few weeks has caused more pain for Microsoft. Since most people who are having problem probably have to buy new printers and those old printers are probably going to the waste side. Even manufacturers aren’t going to update their drivers for old printers. Microsoft likes the idea that people will need to buy new printers and maybe even new systems for that Windows 11 OS. They make their money by people upgrading their systems and getting a new Windows 11 key or even a new system by Dell, or some other OEM. Every computer technician is having to work harder for people who might want to install Windows 11. Even then the process of install Windows 11 is not something that can be done very quickly depending on how big the HDD you are going to be converting.

What is to come?

Some people are not going to install Windows and maybe will wait to see what Microsoft does. We’ve already seen a comparison from Windows 8 to Windows 10 and you know how well Windows 8 didn’t work out well. Some are probably going to install another OS that won’t require people to have some stringent requirements like Microsoft. Are you going to Install Windows 11 or are you waiting like I am because you don’t want to worry about all the security requirements to install Windows 11? I’d like to hear your ideas about Windows 11 and or what your will do in 2025 if they still require all these things.

Windows 11 comes with some Printer Problems and Other Issues

PaulOctober 13, 2021

Printer Issues

It seems that if you have a Brother printer there is an issue with being able to print after the latest updates to Windows 11. I am not sure why it isn’t on Windows 10 but according ghacks “Printers may not be detected correctly by the operating system if the printer is connected to the device via USB“. This issue might not only be for Brother printers but more than that. This is something just coming up on the net and not everyone knows what is going on but the fix for this issue is to make it a network printer and not connected to a USB. Microsoft hasn’t yet said anything about this issue.

Performance hit using Windows 11 on AMD

This isn’t a surprise to me but I didn’t know about this until as of late. It seems if you are using Window’s 11 and AMD than you might be getting a 5% -15% performance hit according to Bleeping computers. It can be up to 15% performance hit if you are playing games on Windows 11. The L3 cache is the issue with Windows 11 performance issues. AMD is working on fixing the issue and should have a BIO’s update available later on this year. Until then, I strongly recommend not upgrading to Windows 11. You should just keep with Windows 10.

Windows 11 uses to much memory

It seems to be the File Explorer is using way to much memory for Windows 11 and Microsoft is looking into why this is an issue. Microsoft has issued an update in the ‘Dev’ Channel according to bleeping computers and as of yet isn’t available in the release channel. It seems to be a memory leak that is causing the file explorer to have up to a 1GB size in Windows 11.

Parts of Windows 11 not translated

According to a Reddit user, there seems to be a problem with Windows 11 not translating to the right languages. I’ve seen the photo and I am not sure why it isn’t translate but you should check it out to find out what I am talking about.

These are just a few that I saw and thought I’d share with you about some of the problems with Windows 11 and the latest updates. I am sure this isn’t just Windows 11 but probably some of this might be even Windows 10 but it seems like Windows 11 is getting people’s attention and I thought it should at least be considered to stay off of Windows 11 until they get something done or make something compelling to upgrade to Windows 11.

Is it worth upgrading to Windows 11?

PaulOctober 11, 2021

Windows 11 is now Available

Microsoft releases Windows 11 last week and people all around have had their opinions from it’s good to not so much like I have said. It just isn’t worth it right now to upgrade. You have to worry about encryption of the HDD to having a TPM installed on your system. All these requirements doesn’t mean it is any safer than before. I know that Microsoft is preaching how this will help increase security in their OS. I personally think it is just a lot of hot air, any security that they might think will help, will eventually have some hacker or virus get around. It is a good idea for the short term but maybe no in the long term. We’ve seen blogs talk about how it isn’t worth it and others where Microsoft talked about all these things that will come along but have yet not even seen anything on Windows 11.

Upgrade Woes

Even if you wanted to upgrade, you still have to go through a lot of system preparation for you to even upgrade to Windows 11. You’ll need to enable TPM if you have it and also you will then need to make sure you have UEFI enabled. This also makes you to turn your hard drive partition from MBR into a GPT to be able to use Windows 11. This a lot of system just to use Windows 11. I am hopeful that Microsoft will release a good tool to help you with this issue because I am sure most systems don’t even have GPT being used in Windows 10. Microsoft has said in the past that you can avoid some of this if you install Windows 11 on a new system because you don’t have to encrypt your hard drive or use TPM. So downloading Windows 11 might work for some of you but I am little hesitant due to Microsoft saying that may not support them in the future but I don’t see this being the issue because of the security risks involve.

Should you upgrade

This has been the question for most people around the world. I’ve seen people wonder if they should upgrade. I say probably not right now, due it being so new. There are still problems and nothing is that compelling to install Windows 11 unless Microsoft brings on something so compelling that you will want Windows 11. If they supported DDR5 and helped make the system faster, I am sure it would be something that might compel people to upgrade to Windows 11. I am sticking with Windows 10 ]until I have to consider upgrading or installing a Linux Distro. I am going to say just wait and see what happens in the near future. Only you can really know for sure if you should upgrade. Are you going to upgrade or are you going to wait? Why Not leave a comment and tell me what your thoughts are about Windows 11.

How to use Oracles VirtualBox on Windows 10 (Step by Step Guide)

PaulAugust 21, 2021

What is VirtualBox?

That is the first question you should be asking your if you are wanting to use it. VirtualBox is a way for anyone to play around with other operating systems like Windows 11, and yet I didn’t like it enough to even think about playing around with it on a Virtual machine. You can also install different Linux operating systems to get yourself used to the Linux OS. Either way, the long term’s of using VirtualBox is vastly better than you can imagine. You can try new Operating system and see how they will do with what you might be interested in. This will be a how to on Windows 10 because that’s what I am using but I have already talked about doing it on Linux and installing Windows 10 on it. If you’re curious about doing it the other way around that would be a good start.

After Installing VirtualBox in Windows 10

What’s the first Step in installing an operating system. You either need the USB version or If you have a DVD of the operating system you want to install that will also be good. Each way is not to hard to do while using VirtualBox. First part of this is to initialize the Virtual System.

You’ll want to click the NEW button and you’ll be lead to this screen. Give it any name you would but most will say something like MacOS, Linux, Or Windows (xp, 7, 10, 11) because you would basically like to keep track of that when you start using the Virtual machine.

VirtualBox is pretty intuitive when it comes to which operating you will be installing so when you name it the right Operating system. You should see the version and type change down below to reflect the type of operating system parameters you’ll need to use the Virtual machine.

Dedicating the memory

You’ll want to dedicate a certain amount of memory to be use with VirtualBox so you can have enough to run the virtual operating system and not be sluggish. If you have 16 gb or more of memory than you can easily divide it by 2 if you are just going to do one virtual machine at a time. The Minimum I would recommend to use with a Virtual Machine is 4 gb but that is just a personal opinion.

Create a Virtual Hard drive

This is simply the easiest part of the creating the virtual machine. You can have use as much as you like or as little as you like depending on your situation. I usually give mine at least 10 gb or more depending on which operating I will be installing. The more space you give the less you will have to use on your local hard drive so if you have another drive you want to use so as to not fill up your C: drive that would be preferable.

You’ll want to create a VHD or a VMDK but I rather like just useing the Virtual Hard Drive selection because it makes it so much easier for me.

This is where you should say Fixed size, so it doesn’t use up so much space that it will create a problem for you later on.

If you’re unsure of how much to use just keep it where it is. Most of time when you are just checking out a operating system you will not need to much space to test it out. All you have to do now is Create the Virtual Hard drive and you’ll all setup for the next part.

Installing the Operating system

The next step is to tell tell VirtualBox which ISO you will be using to install into the virtual machine. You’ll want make sure the new machine you just created is turned blue by click on it and then hitting the settings key on VirtualBox dashboard.

Finally you’ll want to hit the little disk drive at the top right and add a new ISO you are wanting to use for the virtual environment.

Simply hit the ADD button and navigate to where you downloaded that ISO and use that then click choose. Once done then you are all set on this part of the setup.

Don’t forget about how the cores

This is not a big issue but sometimes might help with running the Virtual Machine by checking to see how many cores you might want to use with the new operating system. This is however just something I’ve found to speed up the virtual machine. If you have 2 cores you can obviously only use 1 but if you have more than 2 cores it can be nice to use a few more cores to make the system a little bit more responsive.

You are all set

This part is obviously the hard part is to just hit the start or double clicking on the virtual machine you want to make it execute. Either way sit back and play around with what you can do with the new operating system and install it on to the virtual hard drive and you’ll be good to go. Once you install, you can go back to the storage selecting in the settings and remove the ISO to prevent it from loading again. In some cases it will so just go back and remove the ISO from the drive and you can just enjoy playing around with whatever system you want to explore.

Why I uninstalled Microsoft Windows 11 Preview build?

PaulAugust 17, 2021

I reinstalled Windows 10 and Deleted Windows 11!

I don’t know about everyone else but after my week long expedition into Windows 11, I just couldn’t handle the speed issues of the Windows 11 and the encryption. I know it isn’t worth my time after all that to down grade to Windows 10 but I I felt it wasn’t going to get any smoother than that. I also would of had to have deleted the partition anyways since it was locked to secure boot and UEFI. I really didn’t want to try to convert it back to MBR. I got my trust Windows 10 DVD and started it up and found the partitions I wanted to delete and then I reinstall Windows 10. I will say that after wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows 10, and turning off all the Encryption crap and just booting into Windows has seen my load times go back to normal.

Windows 11 Problems

First off the main problem I had with Windows was the need to encrypt the Hard drive and I was using a NVME which should of been way faster than a standard SSD or Hard drive to boot up. That wasn’t the case, I’d see the swirling load screen on my system for several seconds and then it would finally boot. Due to the encryption that Microsoft says is required to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t cut it for me. Even playing games like Minecraft was screwy and that isn’t even taking up that much memory at the most 2 GB or if you know how to do it 4 GB. I’d play with Minecraft and the system would take forever to load up the next part of the map or even play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and It wouldn’t be sluggish there also.

The Start Menu

This was something that was just annoying, I think Microsoft wanted to look like an Apple device and bring the apple guys over because of the look. I can’t understand why you would prevent people from reverting back to the old Windows 10 setup. I can only wonder what people will do to find out what they are running and if it will actually be a good idea to keep the start menu in the middle of the screen. Some people have these really long screens and it might help them. I personally would like to move the taskbar anywhere on the outside of the screen, top or maybe right or left of the screen. You wouldn’t be able to do that either. Which will make people really mad.

I can’t see this being all about security

It just can’t be about viruses and malware or even the recent months of ransomware attacks that have been happening in the past year, due to the Covid19 situation around the world. I have talked about how Windows will ultimately fail and we will see virus writers come up with some good viruses and malwares to compromise the Secure boot and even the TPM that is trying to be forced to be used by Windows. I am sure it isn’t over, and if Microsoft isn’t going to change, we’ll see people leaving left and right to go to operating system that are much less restrictive and more open such as Linux. In the end, I went back to Windows 10 because of the speed and performance, and I am not even thinking about Windows 11 until I find out what they will require when the system is finally released. This will be a big deal to some but me, I am not interested in the so called security features of Windows 11.