Bonum Certa Men Certa

Intel Helps Microsoft Kill Windows 10, Push Software People Don’t Want, and Fight the Reverse Upgrade Treadmill

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer

Intel is helping Microsoft kill Windows 10, by only creating a WiFi 7 driver for Windows 11.



Even though the two systems are barely different except that Windows 11 is a lot slower and uses a lot more memory, and has a platform for Microsoft to put ads all over the shell when they want to, Intel is only writing WiFi 7 drivers for Windows 11, Linux, and ChromeOS.



This sort of reminds me of a Pentium 4 system I moved back to Windows 98 only to realize that the driver EXE from Intel was saying Windows 98 was unsupported.



What? How could that be? Windows 98 has WDM.



So I unpacked the EXE with an extractor and right clicked the INF file, and told Windows to install it, and the drivers went in, rebooted, and all the hardware came up and was recognized.



Intel has been doing this forever because it helps kill off older PCs.



What the user should do is just install a Linux distribution that lands support for it, but I don’t suspect it will take very long for people to hack the driver up and install it on Windows 10 anyway.



This happened with Skylake chipsets. Microsoft quickly cut off Windows updates if it detected a Skylake or later CPU. It wasn’t long before people had defeated this and started installing the updates anyway, and nothing bizarre (other than Windows being really buggy on everything) happened.



It’s manipulation, is what it is.



The guy at Walmart in the early 2000s admitted to me that they had tons of customers bringing back Windows XP PCs with some botched Windows 98 installation on them, and I’m betting some got whacked by the driver setup “error” from Intel, which was completely fake, and a lie, and just didn’t know how to bypass it.



People fondly remember XP because they don’t remember the horror show that was unleashed in 2001 that was barely compatible with anything (you had to constantly apply Application Compatibility Updates, and wait another month if the program you had wasn’t on the list) and had pop-up spam and worms.



I call what happens with new Windows releases and the rush to get something older on the computer the “reverse upgrade treadmill”.



Microsoft’s last version was so much less terrible then the current one that users are desperate to purge it, but many don’t know what they’re actually doing and bungle it.



There wasn’t anything XP had that I needed, not even multi-core support because it was a single core Pentium 4.



I knew how to fully purge IE and friends from 98 (Bruce Jensen did a great job writing this, btw!) and go back to the Windows 95 B shell, and extend Windows 98 with “backports” from Me, various hotfixes that still applied without IE there, DirectX 9, and KernelEx.



I recently saw someone on YouTube deploy a kernel extender add-on to Windows 2000 and then he started grabbing applications for it like the current (in 2020) release of Pale Moon and doing all kinds of funny things with it.



So like, Microsoft kneecaps you and then hackers (Not in the mainstream media sense, but people like me who want it to work forever and so here’s a hack, there’s a hack, you get a hack, everyone gets a hack! Oh you want some? Get some! And Firefox works again…) start going nuts with it because they want to use it forever, and so they do. And they find that you can run 2020s software on Windows 2000 and do a lot of stuff you’re really not supposed to be able to do, once you’ve neutered Microsoft’s “enforcers”, like Intel, and Mozilla, which quickly leave you unsupported on a system that can’t even browse the Web soon.



And I mean, whose computer is it?



I had a licensed copy of Windows 98 that I removed from another system first (even though there was no activator to enforce that).



One reason Microsoft wants Windows 11 as a disservice, or in the Clown, is so the party’s over and all you can do is keep paying them.



PCs can last a long time and how would they ever sell you a new one if yours just worked for 10 or 15 years like mine do?



Better switch to Linux.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
 
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025