Windows 10 Security Updates

Is my device compatible with Windows 11?

That’s the million dollar question millions of people around the world will be asking themselves.  In short, if your device is relatively new then chances are  it is.  To make sure you can download the Microsoft PC Health Check app from the Microsoft store.  Full instructions on how to do this can be found here.

If you machine can be upgraded to Windows 11, before you run the update make sure you backup any important files before you run the upgrade because it’s always better to be safer than sorry.  If you need help with the upgrade you will find plenty of guides online, or you can contact us to do it for you, especially if you run a business and have several machines that you need to upgrade.

My device is not able to run Windows 11, what next?

Whilst there are several reasons why your device may not be compatible with Windows 11, these are usually related to the hardware specs for the device itself.  Whilst we won’t go into detail as to why, all is not necessarily lost.

If you’re committed to using Windows, Microsoft Office and use a variety of PC software that you’re familiar with you’ll have no choice but to either carry on running Windows 10 and accept the known risks, or spend anywhere between $1000-$2000 on a new device. The latter involved setting up the new machines from scratch, reinstalling all the software, copying across all your files, web browser settings, connecting your email accounts, etc.

As you can imagine this all takes time and depending on how many files need copying, software installing, email accounts syncing this can take several hours to do even if you know what you’re doing.  If you don’t have the time of expertise to do it yourself, that’s where we can step in and help as we’ve quite literally upgraded and migrated 100’s of user profile to new machines over the years.

Linux – A viable alternative for many!

Linux has come of age since it’s conception many decades ago and could well be a viable alternative for many people, a night in shining armor so to speak, However, it all depends on what you use your device for because not all software is available for it.  If you use your machine for gaming then its not a viable alternative, however if you use it for day to day things like browsing the internet, checking, emails, writing documents, etc. then it very much can be and can save you from spending up to $2000 or more just to run Windows 11.  Not only that, Linux powers more web servers across the world than any other OS, every Android phone runs the Linux kernel, in fact more devices are powered by Linux than you could ever possibly imagine, simply because its free, its Open Source and built by the people for the people.

Linux is an open source OS that comes in many different flavors called Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, etc. and runs open source software.  Open source means than anyone can completely rewrite the whole code to their hearts content unlike Microsoft & Apple OS which has closed source code that makes it impossible for you to know what they code is doing.  These days, Microsoft and Apple have lots of spying technology built into it where as Linux distributions don’t and if they did the whole Linux community would know about it and swap to a different distribution that didn’t.  At WebFolio, Debian has been powering all our web, email and nameservers for the last 15 years and all our machines in the office run either Ubuntu or Debian desktop OS.  By default when you install the desktop OS, it comes with many everyday apps and software pre-loaded so you don’t have to download and install them.  Sure there might be a little learning curve when it comes to installing bespoke open source software, but you’ll find the internet littered with step by step instructions.

Linux can run on virtually any machine, especially those that run Windows 10 but can’t be upgraded to Windows 11.  If you can’t afford to buy a new laptop just to run Windows 11, installing Linux could be the next best thing.  Instead of Office 365, there’s open source alternatives like LibreOffice that have Word, Excel equivalent and can open and save files in Office 365 formats.  Instead of using Outlook for emails, Mozilla Thunderbird is a very good alternative.  For images and graphic design, why spend $100’s on Adobe Photoshop when you can use GIMP, an open source equivalent.  What’s more all these open source software is completely free so why pay $200+ every year to lease Microsoft Office when you can use LibreOffice and Thunderbird.  In fact, many of these open source alternatives aren’t just for Linux, they can be install on PC’s as well so you can download, install them on a PC so you can trial them before making the leap and going fully 100% open source.

With states in Germany, Denmark and France starting to ditch Microsoft products due to costs, privacy and security concerns and roll out Linux based OS to all their government offices, its a solid indicator that a new revolution free from Big Tech is gaining tracking.

If you would like to know more about Linux as a viable alternative for your home or office needs whilst saving yourself $$$ splashing out on new hardware to run Windows 11 then contact us today.

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