It's funny how Windows 11's hardware requirements were chosen to encourage the sales of new PCs, but it has had the opposite effect on me....
I have always assembled my own desktop PCs, except that my previous desktop was a Compaq that I found at a good price. It served me well... until I decided to upgrade the graphics, replacing the onboard graphics hardware with a dedicated GPU... until I did the math and realized that the Compaq's power supply could not support a half-way decent GPU card. While it was basically an ATX power supply internally and connector-wise, it was not quite an ATX form factor. The PS had a non-standard shape in order to fit within the unique shape of the Compaq's case, and no off-the-shelf ATX supply could be shoehorned into that case.
Whelp, I replaced that Compaq with another homebrew PC, swearing to never again buy a pre-assembled name-brand PC.
Until MS inflicted Windows 11 on the world.
Lately I've been feeling cramped by RAM and hard drive limitations, and also a CPU upgrade would be nice, but if I install a new motherboard then I feel that I might as well move from Windows 7 to a more modern version of Windows.
MS seems to have pulled the old online Windows 10 upgrade options; 11 is the only Windows game in town, and I refuse to allow that rancid product to contaminate my machines. So I've been reconsidering maybe giving a home to a pre-owned PC running Win10. Maybe.
But brand new? No. I can hold my breath well enough to tolerate Win10, but Win11 is a deal breaker.
My other option is to finally ditch Windows. I've only ever needed Windows to play a few specific games (which tend to be older and may be runnable under Wine (or ReactOS in a VM)) and to run some work-related software for a profession that I am no longer a part of. I've had various flavors of Linux running on VMs for years, and may soon make Linux my daily driver.
I have always assembled my own desktop PCs, except that my previous desktop was a Compaq that I found at a good price. It served me well... until I decided to upgrade the graphics, replacing the onboard graphics hardware with a dedicated GPU... until I did the math and realized that the Compaq's power supply could not support a half-way decent GPU card. While it was basically an ATX power supply internally and connector-wise, it was not quite an ATX form factor. The PS had a non-standard shape in order to fit within the unique shape of the Compaq's case, and no off-the-shelf ATX supply could be shoehorned into that case.
Whelp, I replaced that Compaq with another homebrew PC, swearing to never again buy a pre-assembled name-brand PC.
Until MS inflicted Windows 11 on the world.
Lately I've been feeling cramped by RAM and hard drive limitations, and also a CPU upgrade would be nice, but if I install a new motherboard then I feel that I might as well move from Windows 7 to a more modern version of Windows.
MS seems to have pulled the old online Windows 10 upgrade options; 11 is the only Windows game in town, and I refuse to allow that rancid product to contaminate my machines. So I've been reconsidering maybe giving a home to a pre-owned PC running Win10. Maybe.
But brand new? No. I can hold my breath well enough to tolerate Win10, but Win11 is a deal breaker.
My other option is to finally ditch Windows. I've only ever needed Windows to play a few specific games (which tend to be older and may be runnable under Wine (or ReactOS in a VM)) and to run some work-related software for a profession that I am no longer a part of. I've had various flavors of Linux running on VMs for years, and may soon make Linux my daily driver.