Thoughts on TPM, Microsoft, and the future

It’s interesting to me to see just how Microsoft has made a sharp delineation between Windows 10 and Windows 11. That staunch and stubborn insistence for requiring TPM 2.0 has caused otherwise fully functional systems to be completely depreciated when it comes to latest software support. It’s especially frustrating given the progress between first generation Core architecture to the current 12th generation saw the greatest jumps in performance not early on but much later, primarily in 12th gen itself rather than 2nd through 10th generations. The stagnation of hardware, at least regarding processors, was a nigh decade long affair. The combination of a floundering AMD and a dominant Intel left us with marginal gains in performance and in upgrades for architecture for years. 

I personally ran a second-generation Core i7 2600K until I finally upgraded to second generation Ryzen with the R7 2700X. And, for many users even that, frankly ancient, 2600K is still a viable option for most tasks especially given my choice to use 16GB of RAM even back then. It’s long in the tooth now but still serviceable. Yet, in Microsoft’s world it’s a whopping six generations too old to warrant support due to a lack of TPM 2.0 support. Yet, the difference between the 2600K and 8600K isn’t quite so striking. My Razer Blade 15” laptop, from early 2019, just squeaks by with the 8750H. But my MacBook 12” from 2017 is a no-go without work despite being just one generation older with the Core m3 7Y32. It runs Windows 11 fine, but the lack of official support makes it an iffy choice. Amusingly, Apple supports even the 5th generation Core i5 5257U with their latest operating system. 

I see Apple pulling the plug on older hardware support over the next few releases, not because the hardware can’t handle it but because of their transition to their own chips and architecture rather than maintain x86-64 support when they’ve completely divested from Intel. In that the choice of a hard line between supported and unsupported hardware makes sense. They did so before during the transition from PowerPC to x86 and it in general is expected from their closed ecosystem and that they control both hardware and software, even more so with them designing their own silicon. It makes it no less annoying for users who are using Apple hardware but it’s a known price for working in the Mac world that is much more closed versus other options in the personal computing space. 

Linux, obviously, has the capability to support the largest swathe of hardware with the latest operating systems and software. It won’t run well, and will be full of compromises, but you can go even back to the very first generation of 64-bit processors if you’re stubborn enough. It will feel like walking through molasses to try and use all those modern features on so few processing cores and with the reduced memory capacity, and especially on a mechanical hard drive of that era. But it will run, if you have the time to wait. But even then, you’re on your own for support. Software developers can only support so much hardware, for so long, before it become untenable. 

But that’s what makes Microsoft’s decision feel so arbitrary. We aren’t talking about near-20-year-old Athlon 64s. We’re talking about AMD and Intel chips and platforms that are less than 5 years old. The most obvious reasoning to me, beyond the incentive of the symbiotic relationship between Microsoft and PC makers for moving more product when people would otherwise be content without upgrading, is that most Linux distributions have been slow to adopt the changes necessary to enable TPM 2.0 support. In a time where Linux has been seeing a resurgence in popularity, and especially now with the release of the Steam Deck, making it more difficult to switch is inherently in Microsoft’s interest. While popular distros such as Ubuntu and Mint support TPM and Secure Boot beyond those with large development teams and support networks other distributions will languish behind, at least in the short term. 

 

Given the blowback they’ve been getting for many of their decisions with Windows over the years they have developed a bit of a defensive posture of proactive changes. They’ve been increasingly on the defense with the continued success of Apple’s Mac and the growing challengers of Chromebooks and Linux. Apple hitting a home run with Apple Silicon in particular is a concern for Microsoft and their professional users. With Linux projects gaining popularity both from a cost standpoint and from an ideological standpoint that also has Microsoft concerned. Rather than becoming more open, more transparent they’ve dug in their heels and strengthened their stance in holding the line on their own ideology. Whether or not that will survive a rapidly changing world where transparency and privacy are even more important is a question that will only be answered with time. What I will say is that with other companies, such as Valve Software, putting huge amounts of resources into Linux development isn’t going to be merely a blip in history. I think we’re at the convergence of a historic set of circumstances that could very well see the first real shakeup in the personal computing industry since the 1990s when Windows became the dominant platform signaling the end of the first era that had been made of a great many platforms all vying for dominance, largely with names forgotten to time. People don’t remember CPM, OS/2, Amiga, Commodore, or any number of the dozens of others. 

We’ve had a Windows world ever since. And as a person who has always been fascinated with trying new platforms, new technologies, and new paradigms, I’m very excited for the future of computers. Hardware is growing again by leaps and bounds and software is finally seeing new ideas gain some real traction. Perhaps equally exciting is to see how Microsoft does through this latest challenge. They’ve traditionally been very stubborn but have also learnt through pushback that sometimes they have to adapt to changes in the world. Hopefully, for them, they see that today’s world is rapidly changing and that what is most important to their users is changing away from what they want their users to find important. Otherwise, we could be looking at a very different world in a decade. A world better for users, perhaps, but perhaps not.