Older Second-Hand PCs being sold with Unsupported Windows 11?

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Tinkerisk

4798 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3660

#3436631 22-Nov-2025 14:11

My newly assembled PC with a Core 7 Ultra no longer recognises Windows at all – because I haven't installed it. It therefore simply does not care about Microsoft's irrelevant opinion on anything in the world. Should it change its mind, an encapsulated VM would be a possible solution (as already suggested here). 🙂

- NET: FTTH & VDSL, OPNsense, 10G backbone, GWN APs
- SRV: 12 RU HA server cluster, 0.1 PB storage on premise
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snj

305 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 221

#3436825 22-Nov-2025 19:43

To the original post, I actually made the comment the other night about this sort of issue on the recent 3G shutoff thread, including some selling old systems as "Office/Workstation Ready" or "Fortnite Ready", with no warning that they aren't future proof (as far as Windows itself goes, until Oct next year with extended updates, as far as anything else, zero guarrantee). The example I was thinking of at the time was this one.

Re PB Tech specifically:

SirHumphreyAppleby:

MaxineN:

PB Tech that likes to play loose with the CGA, create horrible post sales experiences and outright refuse to make it right until you either take them to court or it gets enough discussion.

I don't think this is a far statement at all. I've never had an issue with post-sales support at PB Tech.

Tech suppliers often have a 'bad' reputation, because quite frankly, a lot of customers are idiots. I've gone in, clearly stated the problem and the matter has always been resolved.

A lot of technical people have fallen for the same trap, including myself, I've finally relented on a 18 month-ish boycott of them but still have no intention of purchasing any big ticket items unless I absolutely have to from them for the simple fact that my opinion remains that I can't even trust them to respond.

I had the opinion of "I've had okay service, this just one bad story" (despite seeing similar posts across different places with well reasoned arguments and issues). Then I had issue after issue with a purchase at the start of last night, including false advertising/Fair Trading Act stuff. They mucked me around and by the end of it, I'm skeptical about them in the future.

I actually saw a pretty bad example on their website last night (but probably too off-topic for this thread), where after a couple of confused moments I realised it was a careless cut and paste from the manufacturer website that meant irrelevant information was included (information related to a different model), that could definately create confusion about the features in the particular model I was looking at.

ps2jak2

67 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 28

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#3436828 22-Nov-2025 20:00

There was another similar thread about this in early October. Since then,I've personally had to educate a few people who were looking for advise because they needed a cheap win 11 device.

I personally support or several "unsupported" PCs that are running win 11 fine currently. All were upgraded from win 10, and I'm perfectly aware the next major Win11 update (26H2) may well break compatibility with them and have planned accordingly.

I suspect there will be more noise about this in a couple of years if / when these devices can't (or get soft blocked by MS) from upgrading to newer win 11 releases - and people start running into issues because of this.

Tinkerisk

4798 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3660

#3436905 23-Nov-2025 05:17

ps2jak2:

… because they needed a cheap win 11 device.

Search keywords: „Mini-PC“ „refurbished“ „intel“ „Generation 8“

Answer (like this, EU examples in €): https://www.afbshop.de/gebrauchte-pcs/mini-pcs/

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