As predicted, Microsoft is formally releasing Windows 11 version 22H2 to the general public today. Also called the “Windows 11 2022 Update,” version 22H2 is a major update that brings a plethora of fixes and refinements to the operating system, improving the Start menu, jettisoning some more Windows 8-era user interface designs, adding new touchscreen and window management features, and more. We covered many of the new features earlier this year, when the update was still undergoing beta testing.
The rollout to Windows Update will be phased, but if you want to get your hands on the update now, you can use the Windows 11 Installation Assistant, because that makes sense.
The bigger question is…why bother with Windows 11 when they have already announced that Windows 12, aka “Oops our bad, sorry about that” will be released in 2024? Support for Windows 10 ends in 2025 so you can just skip 11 for 12 so just like Vista and 8 you can just skip 11 and leave it for those willing to suffer as alpha testers for 12.
And before anybody chimes in with “Just use Linux” reply unless you are willing to replace my hardware and those that cross my workbench that is a no, AMD APUs are popular here and Linux support for APUs is frankly atrocious, honestly Hackentoshes have better support than Linux does for AMD APUs as apparently Linux devs think “supported” means “can output a 800×600 non accelerated VESA display and chug worse than a 486 running Win98”. And since both Win 10 and 11 (and I’m willing to bet Win 12 as well, thank you Bill Gates for a stable driver ABI!) support Amernime drivers I can easily slap the latest Windows on any AMD APU laptop and get full 2022 drivers with hardware acceleration.
bassbeast,
Such drama; either buy linux supported hardware or don’t. It’s one thing for inexperienced users to buy unsupported hardware, but you’ve been complaining about it for so many years, you should know better.
Except windows drivers often fall short too. This past month I reassembled an older computer with a 2006 era Radeon card. And though I tried getting it to work over a few days ultimately I couldn’t get the drivers to run on windows 10, it was stuck in VGA modes. Granted maybe my expectations for windows 10 to support such old hardware were too high, but you know what when I popped in a linux distro…voila hires video was working strait away. I don’t think it had acceleration, but it played full screen youtube and was good enough whereas windows 10 was a hard fail. This is just the latest of many times over the years that I’ve discovered hardware support getting dropped from windows. Obviously YMMV, but I find there to be a lot of hypocrisy when windows fans are judging other platforms.
And here comes the Linux zealot, right on cue, so predictable. Do you see Windows users posting on Linux or apple posts telling everyone to buy windows 10? do you see Apple users posting on either Linux or windows posts telling everyone to go out and buy the new Macbook? Nope.
It is only the Linux Loonies that have to come and preach on articles which have absolutely NOTHING to do with them because God forbid someone in the free world does not know they preach the cult of Linux. You know what you guys remind me of? the guy that has to constantly brag he doesn’t own a TV. read it if you dare and see if this doesn’t sum you up perfectly…
https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469
BTW nice straw man, It takes all of 5 seconds to read how to install a 2006 Radeon card in Windows 10 with compatibility mode. Show me oh wise one how to install the Ubuntu 4 driver on a modern Ubuntu system so an AMD APU will work…oh wait you can’t because Linux is still stuck in windows 98 era driver design with zero backwards compatibility which means it still doesn’t have features windows has had since windows 2000.
Oh and its ironic as you tried to claim you can’t get a 2006 driver to work as I’m currently propping my feet on an FX6100 a customer tossed my way when he bought a new system because the inboard sound fried on the board…I stuck a Sound Blaster in it that hasn’t had a driver put out by Creative since 2002, windows 10 certainly doesn’t seem to mind that Windows XP RTM driver as I’m listening to Cortana talk to me right now lmao. But just to show how nice windows is here is how you install that Radeon driver, doesn’t need any silly man pages or CLI voodoo (which Linux users hang onto like a fetish, like having to do everything in a glorified DOS box makes you smarter), just clicky clicky and you are done. You’re welcome.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/how-to-install-device-drivers-in-compatibility/6761d743-1273-4bd4-b044-f2ac146db9cf
This place is open to everyone, Windows as well as Linux fans, more than dedicated placed like sub reddit and so. Mac users don’t care, the software is so tied to the hardware that it’s just a matter throwing everything to the bin when buying the newest/yearly iteration.
We’ve already covered this before : Linux ABI is a complete mess vs Windows able to run Windows 2000 era binaries just perfectly. But sure, the driver/kernel compatibility shall not be perfect. While you could use Windows 2000 drivers under Windows XP, maybe less so under Windows 10.
So at a moment, just admit that a certain hardware should use its dedicated software up to the latest SP/LTS supported version. Be it Windows or Linux. Or even Mac.
True, time to slow down…
Windows, too, had a major DDK update during the Vista timeline, and many older drivers stopped working.
For example, I somehow managed to hack my Sound Blaster Audigy to work on it. But then it would lose many of the features. Basically a surround sound card with an optical *input* and enhanced hardware DSP, became a basic one.
But to be fair most manufacturers actually updated the drivers, so these were rare. But it is not completely gone.
Even today, writing this on a Intel NUC with an AMD integrated GPU, which no longer receives graphics driver updates. After i7-8809G no longer being produced, and their partnership ended, both Intel and AMD are passing the buck on driver responsibility to each other. We owners who bought their product have to resort to hacking drivers to get them running. Windows only provides basic drivers.
(Btw, I still admire relatively stable driver ABI, and being able to run most programs even since 1.0 days).
Kochise,
I agree completely. I’ve even been pretty vocal about my opinions on the problems of the linux ABI and many other problems too. I have never held back on critical discussions of linux, mac, or windows. This has resulted in me butting heads with fans of all three, haha. Oh well.
bassbeast,
Do you see “Linux users posting on Windows posts telling everyone to use linux”? That certainly did NOT happen here and it’s dishonest to suggest it did. You were poster #1 and despite the fact that this is a windows article it was you personally who brought up linux to criticize linux. Whether you’ll admit it or not, you are spinning a lot of yarn here with an objectively false narrative.
I’m only interested in linux as a tool, not a religion and I don’t think you are justified in calling me preachy in responding to your post. You really seem to get off on creating drama where non is warranted. I couldn’t care less what OS you use. If linux makes you so miserable, then use windows and don’t give linux another thought. Bam, I just saved you from years of frustration, you can thank me later.
Sorry, but I did read, research and I did get the original software & drivers installed, but the drivers wouldn’t work. AMD’s driver assist tool detected the card properly but reported it as unsupported. I really did my darnedest to get windows 10 to work. And you want to know why? I thought windows would be better for the person I was building this for. I ended up telling them if they needed windows they’ll need something newer. Anyhow it does burst the bubble that things always “just work” with windows. When it comes to older unsupported hardware the truth is it might not. Over the years I’ve had a lot of EOL hardware stop working after windows upgrades. Honestly I blame the manufacturers more than microsoft for this, but even so it doesn’t really change the fact that even windows users can experience these problems.
So? The sound worked on windows 10 for me as well, but frankly that doesn’t have a barring on the graphics problem. If I bring my car to a mechanic because my car won’t start, them telling me my radio works doesn’t help me at all “lmao”.
You seem to be taking any negative experience with windows as an attack on you or your choices, but it’s not. It’s just my experience and opinion, nothing more and nothing less. I’m happy for you to use what’s best for you, but it shouldn’t be asking too much to expect the same respect in return. Please stop instigating trouble with baseless accusations and condescending tone towards those of us who happen to prefer using linux for ourselves.
Alfman,
I as mentioned above just few minutes ago, one has to be lucky to depend on manufacturers to actually provide drivers for niche hardware.
Case in point Intel NUC8i7HVB:
https://www.reddit.com/r/intelnuc/comments/sgdskz/nuc8i7hvb_amd_driver_update_whoa/
Just FYI, I still have my Via C7 machine under Windows 2000/XP/QNX 6.5/Ubuntu/Fedora, my Intel Atom 330 and my AMD E350 under Windows 7. All running flawlessly. Just don’t “upgrade” for the sake of it. It’s the software providers that should find the solution to compartmentalize the security parts to be able to update them independently to avoid the mess we are into today. Not you to throw away perfectly capable hardware because the whole software “brick” is considered “obsolete”. Software is “plastic” enough to adapt, provided the people cared enough to architecture it correctly.
Kochise,
You are right. Although I’d point out that for my needs personally some of the software I need has been forcing my hand at OS upgrades. You look at technology like .net, it shouldn’t be hard to support older operating systems without much trouble, but I think that microsoft goes out of it’s way to make sure it won’t work. Then the developers who innocently use the latest .net are inadvertently being used to push the latest versions of windows even though the applications themselves don’t benefit from the newer OS.
I agree with this too. If we’re perfectly honest most applications in the last couple of decades would still work 100% fine on win2k if not for the artificial barriers that microsoft has been adding in newer versions of visual studio. Even the commercial software I build for work with a code base from the 90s will only run on windows 7 and newer because of the build tools we use and not because of any “real” software incompatibilities. By controlling the build technology that most developers are using and limiting backwards compatibility by default, microsoft has a very effective planned obsolescence strategy.
BTW upgrading VS versions is a corporate decision, not my personal choice.
@Alfman, indeed, I’ve seen “incompatibilities” introduced in newer Microsoft SDK. It’s not just a matter of upgrading the compiler to mitigate Spectre or Meltdown, it’s also in the API layers. It’s rather subtle, but as you mentioned, applications that could perfectly fit in the Windows 2000’s API offering (not using “fancy” frameworks that brings no added functionalities) are yet rendered impossible to run on such hardware by carefully crafted headers and GUID to only match later libraries. How many latest browsers or “office” softwares cannot be run on older 32 bits architectures, despite not providing anything new but a regular GUI and features that we’re used to for decades ? That’s why I now only use “rogue” languages, compilers and libraries. I really dislike being arm wrestled into such a nonsense.
In fairness, in a post about a Windows 11 update, you spent 67 words talking about Windows, and 123 words to talk about how terrible you think Linux is.
You’re the first person to bring up Linux in this thread. On an article about Windows, no less.
Can I ask why you think successfully running a graphics card from 2011 – well after the WDDM changes that came with Windows 7 – is relevant to running an XP and Vista-era graphics card in Windows 10?
@bassbeat
This is such a weird post. Linux supports AMD APUs just fine, in fact the AMD opensource drivers are fairly stable. I think your rant would be ironic if you have one of the AMD cpu/mobo combination that are not supported by Windows 11. LOL
Installation via the Installation Assistant is dumb, because you need to have that PC Health Check app installed, even if you’ve already got Windows 11.
On the other hand, the new included Clipchamp app looks pretty slick. Slick enough to almost inspire me to make some videos for the ol’ TikTok or something.
Almost. But probably not.
I have not been using Windows on a daily base, since 2016. And every time I try to navigate Win10 or Win11, I find it such a mess. I am used to at least 6 different non-windows operating systems now. But Windows is just a mess. Back before 2016, I mostly knew nothing about other operating systems, other than MS Dos and AmigaOS. But today I find that Windows is not what I wish to go back to. I could run MacOS if I wanted, but so far Ubuntu Mate have covered my needs perfectly the last 6 years on my daily driver. Of course I would have to use Windows if I were working with software and web devellopment, but I simply do not do that.