News Microsoft: You Can't Get Around Windows 11 Requirements

[kmi187]

I'm already looking into what version of Linux I'm gonna run after Win10 isn't supported anymore. There is a learning curve but most programs have a work around. Linux Mint seems fairly intuitive with a nice interface.

If you prefer Ubuntu based, have a look at Pop!OS, if you like arch based, I highly recommend giving Garuda Linux a try. Both do gaming very well if that's important to you.

 

[Danra]

Micro$haft told us that Windows 10 would be the last OS we will need, only need patches and upgrades to stay up to date. Wonder if $15 copies of Win 10 has anything to do with the move to Win 11. Will Win 11 have a vastly different kernal than Win 10?

 

[USAFRet]

Micro$haft told us that Windows 10 would be the last OS we will need, only need patches and upgrades to stay up to date. Wonder if $15 copies of Win 10 has anything to do with the move to Win 11. Will Win 11 have a vastly different kernal than Win 10?

The cheap bogus Win 10 licenses have nothing to do with this.
Win 10 was always a free upgrade for any valid license, Win 7 or later. The same is apparently going to happen with 11.

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

Ridiculous! I have an ASUS X570 motherboard and an AMD 2700X CPU. And Microsoft says I can't run Windows 11?
Guess what?
I'm staying with Windows 10.
Buzz off Microsoft.
WhynotWin11 isn't that much better.
It reports that I am using a Legacy Boot Method. Wrong!

You actually can, you need to enable firmware TPM and (this will make your pc non bootable if it’s not already like this) change it so CSM is disabled, meaning EFI boots instead of BIOS compatibility mode.

 

[kjfatl]

It just means there will be a bunch of bootleg versions with assorted workarounds & hacks to allow installation a-la the hackintosh community and dark-site license verification/activation like that currently available for virtually all MS and other software. As usual, it'll only be legit installs that will be affected.

If Microsoft changes drivers associated with the bios and development tools to require TPM, there won't be bootleg versions. Without TPM, the OS simply won't boot. Sure hackers could fix all 600 or so places where the OS contacts TPM this month, but next month it will fall apart again.

I don't think Microsoft has much choice here. After recent malware hacks, Microsoft is becoming legally responsible for insecure machines. Supporting the older CPU's is too costly. There are too many known security holes,.

 

[purple_dragon]

People say that with every new Windows release....
Few actually change.

I've used Ubuntu as a side OS for a few years and don't mind it. Of course there are always a few things you can really only do efficiently on Windows.

 

[escksu]

No need. Watch the Linus Tech Tips video for simple methods for installing Win11 on every machine that can run Win10. You don't need any kind of TPM.

No, I don't recommend them for long term use. The reason is very simple. What works now may not work later. Nobody knows if M$ decide to issue updates that prevents you from going around their requirements. So, even if you could install now, you might not be able to update your OS later. And you will be stuck because M$ forces everyone to update.

 

[escksu]

If Microsoft changes drivers associated with the bios and development tools to require TPM, there won't be bootleg versions. Without TPM, the OS simply won't boot. Sure hackers could fix all 600 or so places where the OS contacts TPM this month, but next month it will fall apart again.

I don't think Microsoft has much choice here. After recent malware hacks, Microsoft is becoming legally responsible for insecure machines. Supporting the older CPU's is too costly. There are too many known security holes,.

Yes, its useless now. Whatever hacks/cracks that allows it to work now may not work later. M$ now forces everyone to update else their OS becomes obsolete. So, you will be forced to up your OS.

Hence, I would say its simply better to stick with windows 10. Right now, there is simply 0 reason to use windows 11. There are no performance enhancements right now (some pple reported things are even slower than win10). None of us uses Alderlake CPUs so the supposedly scheuduler enhancement will not benefit us.

 

[great Unknown]

Upgrade to a Zen 2 or Zen 3 cpu and you are good both will be much faster than the 2700X. And you can do it next year prices will be lower.



What would be the point of doing this?

If this comes with DRM or similar intrusiveness...

 

[waltc3]

Glad to see it! Security is a major problem (especially malware in case you haven't been paying attention) , and it is gratifying to see Microsoft upping the baseline security requirements for Windows 11--I've had TPM 2.0 for the past two years with my motherboard (see sig), btw, secure boot and the rest of it years before that. Win10 supports all of it without a problem. And, if people are baffled & don't know what to do then just keep running Win10 which will be supported until 2025--and if Microsoft's EOL history is any guide, probably ~2027-ish... I've never known Microsoft not to extend an EOL date.

I do not consider myself "locked down" whatsoever... Imagine that. I'm delighted of the extra security I've had for the past several years--and which I never actually notice at all. Moving to Win11 costs nothing, and the retail license follows the customer, the OEM license follows the motherboard, exactly as it applies in Win10. The road forks here, the way of increased baseline security being the way forward. Perfectly rational and logical, imo.

 

[randomizer]

Having fTPM disabled by default in the BIOS is going to mean millions of "incompatible" computers will be replaced for no good reason.

 

[smogfactory]

Well

Guys, I guess now might be the time to buy TPM chips, because when it launches, Windows 11 is gonna make them pretty valuable.

only pretty valuable to those that don't understand the requirements. Which it looks like the article writer is one of those. Intel CPU's have been shipping with TPM built in for many years now and so have AMD (though not as long). You don't need a physical separate TPM, so even many motherboards that don't have a TPM installed it is just a matter of enabling it in the BIOS (sometimes that requires a BIOS upgrade to expose the setting). Even my old 6th gen intel machine I had no trouble enabling the TPM . The big issue many face is they don't understand they already have a TPM or understand how to turn it on (and it can be bloody hard as different vendors bury it in variously different named options in the BIOS), e.g. on my newer Gigabyte motherboard it was under miscellaneous, in my Asus it was buried in the tweaker advanced settings, can have various names depending on AMD or Intel and motherboard manufacturer as well.

 

[uptonland]

just fyi your information on hackintosh is from 2018. nowadays we use legit installers on top of a solid, foss substrate called opencore. everything is pretty dang secure and legit (except for that one pesky eula violation).

Yes I'm well aware of Opencore but it doesn't change my point which is that MS won't be able to lock it down in a practical way to prevent unsupported installs. Is the Opencore community working on W11 yet?

 

[uptonland]

If Microsoft changes drivers associated with the bios and development tools to require TPM, there won't be bootleg versions. Without TPM, the OS simply won't boot. Sure hackers could fix all 600 or so places where the OS contacts TPM this month, but next month it will fall apart again.

I don't think Microsoft has much choice here. After recent malware hacks, Microsoft is becoming legally responsible for insecure machines. Supporting the older CPU's is too costly. There are too many known security holes,.

Aren't there software based TPM emulators? They probably could be kludged into place. MS wouldn't be legally liable for bootleg installs, only legit ones so they likely wouldn't put much more effort into constantly shifting the goalposts than Apple does with MacOS.

 

[uptonland]

only pretty valuable to those that don't understand the requirements. Which it looks like the article writer is one of those. Intel CPU's have been shipping with TPM built in for many years now and so have AMD (though not as long). You don't need a physical separate TPM, so even many motherboards that don't have a TPM installed it is just a matter of enabling it in the BIOS (sometimes that requires a BIOS upgrade to expose the setting). Even my old 6th gen intel machine I had no trouble enabling the TPM . The big issue many face is they don't understand they already have a TPM or understand how to turn it on (and it can be bloody hard as different vendors bury it in variously different named options in the BIOS), e.g. on my newer Gigabyte motherboard it was under miscellaneous, in my Asus it was buried in the tweaker advanced settings, can have various names depending on AMD or Intel and motherboard manufacturer as well.

I have systems that have both Intel fTPM as well an onboard hardware TPM socket for extra flexibility so I suppose I might be good to go when Win13 requires TPM v,3!

 

[SethNW]

Personally, I think it is not as big of an issue. Win10 will keep working till 2025, at which point unsupported hardware will be like 8 years old and a lot of people will want to upgrade before that.

As for requirements, MS did state that having secure boot and TPM helps to significantly reduce chances of security breach by malware. So it definitely isn't just in the whim. Also I do suspect they want to reduce amount of hardware they have to test and validate for, which frees more time to do more work for actually supported hardware. Maybe even allow code cleanup to remove some of those optimizations that keep older hardware relevant in favor of changing it to better accommodate upcoming stuff.

As for installing it on unsupported device. Well, they do need to stand with what they said, since people will bypass those limitations and install it anyway. Otherwise MS could be held responsible for issues that might cause. But this way, they can just tell you it isn't supported and have zero responsibility. At least legally.

 

[LolaGT]

To the folks saying this in the same story when win10 came out, I don't recall MS forcing anyone to junk their Win7 machines( that were perfectly capable of handling 10) and start over on a new CPU/motherboard platform.
Regardless, there will literally be many millions of perfectly fine PCs still running well but not meeting the requirement when the time comes in 2025.
There is no need to worry what kind of Linux is available right now, because the only thing we can be sure of is in 2025 there will be a different one. If I was a betting man and this future turns out to be reality someone will make it very easy to set up when that time comes.

 

[Elitepranvent]

You don't actually need secure boot to be enabled according to the specs so that being a requirement is extremely arbitrary. TPM they haven't explained the use of, but okay I could see it no real problem here. Arbitrarily cutting off CPUs which support both secure boot and TPM 2.0 without an explanation is by far the worst part of this debacle. I have a 6900k system which supports secure boot and has a TPM 2.0, but for no disclosed reason this isn't good enough.

Lmaoooo you have a 6900k and Microsoft is just like "peasant" lol

 

[david germain]

makes me wonder if it possible to get the TPM2 chip ( about £3 from RS components) and make a arduino/Raspberry pi to make it work.
or rewire one of the cheap TPM2 modules to fit the specific board. foxxconn do one for £3 and i bet the pinout are somewhat standard. just the connector is different.

 

[TerryLaze]

As a software developer, this is bad on Microsoft, because I'll have to support two major versions of Windows for the foreseeable future. A typical techie home will be running Windows 10 on their PC's, laptops, HTPC/NAS boxes and maybe have one machine they can install Windows 11 on.

There is software made for win95 that still installs and runs on windows 10 without even needing compatibility options because they followed all the rules that microsoft has in place for just that.
So what is your software going to doing on windows 11 that is so special that windows 10 just won't be able to do it?
As soon as you are in the windows environment there is no difference anymore, unless you maybe have to make new icons that fit better with new environment.

 

[germz1986]

I have an old machine in the office. I swapped the install.wim file from the 11 iso to a 10 install flash drive. Bare metal install went without ANY complaint. Computer is legacy bios. No registry editing in setup to get it to install. 12 year old processor. NO TPM, no secure boot. Obviously it runs fairly slowly because of its age, but it boots and runs just fine. Now I wouldn't do this in production for any of my customers. I would recommend a new computer after 12 years.
https://ibb.co/rvDvy6M

 

[Pollopesca]

I’d imagine the hard cutoff past 8th gen is to reduce how much they have to support and test going forward. Back when 10 launched it seemed like damn near anything with at least a core2 form 2006 could run it no problem. Supporting drivers for a hardware pool that massive must have been a nightmare. MS wanted a single unified platform, but I don’t think they fully understood how much work that would become. Having a hardware cutoff reduces their support workload tremendously. That said, people will always find ways around.

 

[germz1986]

I’d imagine the hard cutoff past 8th gen is to reduce how much they have to support and test going forward. Back when 10 launched it seemed like damn near anything with at least a core2 form 2006 could run it no problem. Supporting drivers for a hardware pool that massive must have been a nightmare. MS wanted a single unified platform, but I don’t think they fully understood how much work that would become. Having a hardware cutoff reduces their support workload tremendously. That said, people will always find ways around.

Seeing how 11 just installed built in driver's for the pc I installed it on on the above machine I don't see that being the issue. 11 had all the driver's for that computer running the ancient AMD 880g chipset. For giggles I'm going to dig out a core 2 quad box I have collecting dust at the shop and see if 11 will install on it and just install driver's.

 

[Geezer760]

The new requirements are horrible.
Why can't I install win 11 if I have a cpu that is clearly capable of running it (like Intel 6th gen)?
I mean sure, if the requirements where just the tpm 2.0 and secure boot I could somewhat expect that argument, but what if I have them both but with a 6 gen cpu? (and before anyone says it is not possible because the cpu is too old I do have such a pc)
It's just a scam to try and force people to buy new pcs

I agree it's a SCAM just to get people to buy new PCs, as if they don't have enough money already, the 11 in windows 11 is two middle fingers to all their customers.

 

[Geezer760]

Ridiculous! I have an ASUS X570 motherboard and an AMD 2700X CPU. And Microsoft says I can't run Windows 11?
Guess what?
I'm staying with Windows 10.
Buzz off Microsoft.
WhynotWin11 isn't that much better.
It reports that I am using a Legacy Boot Method. Wrong!

Windows 11 is DOOMED to fail just like Vista, Win 8, Win 8- 2.0. and then guess what Windows 12 or who knows wtf they will call it.