So Windows 11 is finally official and it comes with its own bucket of controversies. Most of these come from its requirements which although reasonable in terms of RAM and CPU needs will leave millions of PCs behind. This is mainly due to the generation cutoff of the processor that Microsoft has applied to Windows 11. If you don’t have a Zen 2 or Intel 8th Gen then Windows 11 won’t work for you.
Let’s say, even if you have a top-of-line 7th gen CPU, that’s good enough for games today and meets the GHz and core count requirements of Windows 11. You’ll still lose out on trying the new OS. Microsoft hasn’t truly been honest about why they set that limit. The TPM 2.0 requirement will also force people to change their motherboards if they don’t have the chip on them.
Microsoft didn’t impose generation cutoffs on previous version of windows like the Windows 8 and Windows 10. Both required a 1GHz processor regardless of which generation of processor it was. Many people were looking forward to the new operating system but it seems that a sharp percentage of them might not be able to enjoy it.
Many reached out to Microsoft to try and figure out why they had made the hardware requirements like that. According to Microsoft, the main thing which led to making these changes was Security. Which Microsoft is pushing hard with the new Windows. Windows 11 comes with a big security benefit when you coming TPM 2.0 with secure boot and other virtualization technologies.
According to Microsoft, a combination of Windows Hello, Device Encryption, Secure Boot, TPM, virtualization-based security, and hypervisor-protected code integrity or HVCI has been shown to reduce malware by 60 percent. Although the preview build doesn’t have the 8th gen or Zen 2 requirement right now. We will have to deal with it in the official stable build of the new Windows.
Microsoft offered some clarity on their stance, saying that “As we release 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”. They also made it clear that the 7th gen is as far back as they will go. Intel’s 6th gen chips and AMD’s pre-Zen chips don’t meet Microsoft’s minimum criteria.
Welp, time to upgrade my toaster.
