Last week, Microsoft angered PC users everywhere when it revealed that Windows 11 won’t officially support CPU processors from a mere four to five years ago.
But now the company is considering lowering the system requirements to include two earlier CPU generations: Intel’s “Kaby Lake” 7th-gen chips from 2016 and AMD’s Ryzen 1000 processors from mid-2017.
“As we release [the OS] to Windows Insiders and partner with our OEMs, we will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet our principles,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post on Monday.
Microsoft’s messaging around Windows 11’s system requirements has been a mess, in large part due to the company’s PC Health Check app, which you can run on a Windows 10 machine to learn whether it’ll be compatible with the next-generation OS.
Initially, the app had a notable flaw: It wouldn’t explain why a Windows 10 machine was ineligible for the Windows 11 upgrade. A day later, the app was updated to offer an explanation. But that only caused consumers everywhere to learn that the processors inside their relatively new PCs failed to meet the requirements for Windows 11. Others said the app was incorrectly flagging their Microsoft Surface hardware as incompatible with the OS.
In response, Microsoft said it’s temporarily pulling the PC Health Check app with the goal of fixing it. “Based on the feedback so far, we acknowledge that it (the app) was not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn’t meet upgrade requirements,” the company said. “We will get it back online in preparation for general availability this fall.”
The main focus of Microsoft’s blog post is why Windows 11 has higher system requirements over Windows 10. According to Redmond, the heart of the matter is security.
“Windows 11 raises the bar for security by requiring hardware that can enable protections like Windows Hello, Device Encryption, virtualization-based security (VBS), hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), and Secure Boot,” the company wrote. “The combination of these features has been shown to reduce malware by 60% on tested devices.”
As a result, the company is requiring that all Windows 11-eligible PCs include TPM, a technology that can encrypt stored login passwords on the machine. The same PCs must also support Secure Boot, which can prevent malware from taking over the hardware.
However, Microsoft’s blog post doesn’t explain why it cut off the 7th generation Intel chips and Ryzen 1000 processors, which can also feature TPM and Secure Boot. The company merely notes: “Using the principles above, we are confident that devices running on Intel 8th generation processors and AMD Zen 2 as well as Qualcomm 7 and 8 Series will meet our principles around security and reliability and minimum system requirements for Windows 11.”
The good news is that the preview builds for Windows 11 can run on a Windows 10 PC regardless of CPU generation or TPM support. The same blog post also hints that Microsoft could further tweak Windows 11’s system requirements to include additional CPU families.
“By providing preview builds to the diverse systems in our Windows Insider Program, we will learn how Windows 11 performs across CPU models more comprehensively, informing any adjustments we should make to our minimum system requirements in the future,” the company added. On Monday, Microsoft began rolling out the first preview build for Windows 11 through the Windows Insiders Program.
