[SOLVED] Should I offer my clients a choice of Win 10 or incompatible Rufus Win 11?

[Appletax]

Solution: stick with Win 10 or recommend upgrading to a refurbished PC that supports Win 11 if they do not want to pay for a new PC.

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There are clients that are not interested in upgrading to a Windows 11 compatible PC. Recently, a client had me repair and upgrade their Win 10 laptop. They didn't want to spend the extra money to upgrade. They might get a new laptop sometime after Win 10 support ends (I recommended ideally upgrading around mid-2026 at the latest).

Went from 4GB RAM to 12GB, replaced the HDD with an SSD, and nuked and paved Win 10. I thought about offering them a choice of Win 10 or Win 11 altered by Rufus to eliminate that TPM and security requirements. I did not offer this choice because it has a slower processor that probably would not work as well with Win 11.

On another thread of mine on here, I was asked why I installed Win 10 on another laptop.

If I offered to install Rufus Win 11, I would let the client know the pros and cons. Pros: can potentially have much longer support for Windows and programs. Cons: Microsoft may eventually decide to block incompatible Win 11 PCs from receiving updates, which might be fixable by nuking and paving using the newest version. Not sure if they would be so nasty as to totally disable Win 11.

What are your thoughts? What do you do?

 

[Porthos]

I would not do it even on my own computer.
It would be a disservice to your client as it needs to be "hacked/patched" every year to install the yearly feature update.

Are you going to do the fix each year for FREE? If not don't.

 

[Appletax]

I would not do it even on my own computer.
It would be a disservice to your client as it needs to be "hacked/patched" every year to install the yearly feature update.

Yea, I will stick to installing only Windows 10 then.

 

[seashore]

I personally won't be offering to upgrade any machine which is not officially Win11 supported. Too many potential unknowns which I'd be on the hook for.
.

 

[Porthos]

A refurbished 8th gen or newer computer is not that expensive.

I am going with something like this next year since all I do is remote support now and stream entertainment..

 

[britechguy]

I, also, will not be offering any option to install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware. There are just too many downsides and not a single upside for me, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[britechguy]

A refurbished 8th gen or newer computer is not that expensive.

This^^

The market is now awash in used and/or refurbished options that are Windows 11 compatible hardware, and at very reasonable prices. It would easily cost a client more than that specific example to do the work to nuke and pave a Win10 machine and install "tweaked" Windows 11. And you'd likely have to do it again, later.

We really are at a dividing line, and one that is a perfectly reasonable one overall. Time, and technology, marches on.

 

[Markverhyden]

The market is now awash in used and/or refurbished options that are Windows 11 compatible hardware, and at very reasonable prices.

And it will only get bigger with W10 support EOL this fall.

 

[britechguy]

this fall

. . . and moving forward and leading to "critical mass of used/refurbed Win11 compatible hardware" as October 2025 approaches.

There will be untold numbers of business machines coming off lease, some early in all probability, because they can be resold for a bit more than they might be later. They'll still be cheap, relatively speaking, and "the general purpose user" has not needed top of the line processing power for years now.

 

[dcomp12]

@op

Well it all depends on how much are you charging for the SSD re/re Windows and that upgrade. I know that you do a job well done and do offer the best in service but at the same time is the client really getting the best for his money? I would just tell them either lets look for a refurb machine from a well known refurbishing company or get into a new machine that has warranty for x amount of years. If its a business its almost a disservice to them to have a machine that can put them into some downtime.

I mean ultimately if the client wants to use a windows XP and is going to pay you for it and they don't care no matter what you say, then go for it. But as you said and should make a waiver and that he has to accept that at any point Microsoft and other hardware/software manufacturers will not support the older operating system. Also to mention because of the older operating system and possibly the hardware is becoming obsolete that your fees might be higher to service such computers. Basically the end user has to understand that and sign for it and he is the one that is paying.

 

[sapphirescales]

I have installed Windows 11 on unsupported hardware for a handful of clients over the years (it's hard to believe that Windows 11 has been out for almost 3 years now!) but it's not something that I do regularly. Imagine if you had done this with hundreds or even thousands of clients and then Microsoft pulls a POPCNT move and bricks all of them all at once. Normally you want your phone ringing off the hook but that would not be a good day.

You can get a decent business class 8th gen laptop for between $130 - $150. If your clients are so cheap/poor that you can't make any profit on a markup like that then you've got bigger problems. I have a client in right now who bought a custom built desktop for me like...12 years ago. It has an AMD A6-6400K processor, 3GB of RAM (32-bit OS), and a spinning hard drive running Windows 7. They want me to just "upgrade" it to Windows 11. No hardware upgrades. I told them no and gave them the option of either upgrading the hardware (basically a gut job at this point) or buying a new custom build from me. They weren't happy. You'd think getting 12 years out of a cheap computer would have made them trust me but it's only made them entitled.

Is what they want "possible?" Of course. I could always upgrade them to Windows 10, then upgrade them again to Windows 11 but on that slow old hardware I can't even imagine what the user experience would be like for them when they get it back. I mean the thing was slow when I built it 12 years ago.

 

[callthatgirl]

I'd give them the options

 

[frase]

There are ways around issues with Win 11 compatability, whether it is ethical well that is to be upfront with the user in the situation. Though if the user is happy to use Win10 and you both agree I see no real issue. As per usual when dealing with the client I always have a document to sign myself and the client when systems are released on agreed terms.

 

[sits]

As above, I would say you can offer it (but also strongly discourage it too for reasons give above) and if they still want it, make it clear it's with absolutely no warranty or guarantee.