So we have some good news for anyone who's been following the Windows 11
saga, and specifically anyone who wanted to upgrade the Windows 11 when
it comes out, but realized that their computer, for one reason or another,
didn't meet the minimum requirements.
For the most part, this had to do with the generation of the CPU.
For example, with me, I had all the other requirements, but my CPU is apparently
too old, seemed kind of arbitrary.
However, the big news is that Microsoft apparently made some statements to some
news outlets, specifically like the Verge stating that unofficially, you
will be able to upgrade to Windows 11.
Even if you are not on a supported CPU.
You just have to manually install it using either the windows 11 media creation tool,
or an ISO.
Which is not really a big deal.
I mean, that's something that you could easily acquire.
So basically anyone who wants to upgrade should be able to, it's just, you're
not going to get an automatic update.
Which is something they should have just allowed from the beginning.
It makes complete sense.
If someone understands the supposed risks, they should be
allowed to install it anyway.
And people were trying to figure out how to get around it anyway.
And now they won't have to.
And apparently you won't even have to do a clean install.
You will be able to do just a regular upgrade using the ISO or media creation
tool from Windows 10 to Windows 11, without having to do a clean install.
Now there's a couple of things I should point out.
First of all, this is not going to be official or advertised
by Microsoft in any way.
Just some news articles said they talked to some representatives who
said that the ISO installer will not stop you from doing this, but nowhere
on Microsoft's website does say that you will have the ability to do this.
Believe me, I looked.
So it's going to be really unofficial, not advertised, you'll just
have to know that you can do it.
However, apparently the ISO file or media creation tool will still
check for other hardware requirements that are stated with Windows 11.
For example, a minimum of 64 Gigabytes of storage and at least a dual core CPU.
Those aren't a big deal, but the third one is a TPM chip of some kind.
And that's the one that a lot of people are kind of confused
about, because that is one that a lot of people might not have.
Now it's still not very clear whether or not the final Windows, 11 version
will actually require a TPM chip.
There've been a couple of articles that didn't say anything
about TPM chip in their stated requirements, that Microsoft said.
Whereas a couple others either said that, yes, it will require TPM 1.2.
Or they're not sure, but it kind of lines up that it probably will
require at least TPM 1.2, because the Windows 11 insider ISO's do
require that there's a hardware check.
And also back when Microsoft originally had the compatibility page for Windows
11, you might not remember this.
They removed it pretty quickly, but originally it had two different "floors",
they called it for the requirements.
One was a hard floor.
One was a soft floor.
So the soft floor was like the official requirements.
It was TPM 2.0 and a 8th gen Intel or Zen2 plus processor from AMD.
So the idea being, even if your computer didn't support these soft floor
requirements, it could still be installed as long as you had the floor requirements.
Which are TPM 1.2, it had to have minimum, and there was no
CPU generation requirements.
So still no matter what apparently you probably will need TPM 1.2.
This was a requirement even before they took down that page.
The Windows 11 insider require it, and you probably will
need it for the final version.
Now I made a video relatively recently talking about how your computer probably
actually does have a TPM chip, even though it might not say it when you
run the PC health checker app, a lot of CPU's that are several years old even,
have a TPM module built into the CPU, but it's not enabled by default in the BIOS.
So I go through in that video how to go through and look to
see if your computer does have that, and which ones probably do.
And also even if your CPU does not, if you custom built your computer
and even maybe if you didn't, a lot of motherboards may actually have a
slot where you can go and buy a TPM
chip and actually plug it into the motherboard, but you'll have to find
out if you can potentially do that.
I explained that all in the video, I'll have it pop out.
So definitely check that out if you're not sure if your computer has a TPM
chip or is capable of having one.
Now having heard this, you might be wondering just like I did,
okay, so if you actually can install Windows 11 on older CPS,
why does Microsoft have this arbitrary (seemingly) requirement
for certain generations of CPUs?
It's really stupid.
Well, it turns out there actually is a reason.
Microsoft released a blog post, basically talking about all the stuff that they
implemented in Windows 11, that not every
CPU has.
And a couple of them have to do with DCH drivers, which are like
a modern version of drivers that a lot of older hardware doesn't
have, but newer hardware does have.
Any other big thing has to do with a few different virtualization technologies,
which are related to security.
Which basically at the heart of it, allow the computer and operating
system to isolate certain data from other programs in the system.
So it prevents malicious software from being able to inject into memory
of core processes and stuff and.
There's a feature in more modern.
CPU's called MBEC which basically allows this to happen without
a detriment to performance.
Whereas on older CPS, which just happened to be the CPU generations and older that
are not supported by windows 11, those older ones don't have this feature.
And even though you technically can enable the memory isolation
feature, it can reduce the CPU performance by like 40% or so.
So finally, we find out the reason which is Windows 11 kind of wants to
heavily rely on this security feature that other older CPU's don't support.
So they just said, all right, well, we're going to support
newer CPU's that do support it.
Now why Microsoft did not just come out and say this from
the beginning, I have no idea.
I think people would have been so much more understanding and less pissed
off then what they did, which was just arbitrarily put out this CPU generation
list, even though it was pretty clear that it ran on older computers, but they
didn't explain why you needed newer ones.
It was so stupid.
Basically, they had the option of either telling people, "Hey, your CPU
doesn't support an important security feature integral to Windows 11.
So it's not supported unfortunately."
Or they could go with, "Eh, your CPU's just too old, sorry."
Hmm.
I wonder which one they should go with.
Which one would I do?
Ah, yea let's do the second one.
That's a great idea.
Now I'll probably have to make a separate video explaining in more detail, the stuff
that newer CPU's support mostly, that the older ones doesn't and that's the
reason for this generation requirement.
And I'll go into more detail there, but that's just the basic explanation.
So at least now though we do know that even if your computer
doesn't officially support it.
If you do know, you really want to get to Windows 11, you can
choose to do it, although you might need to get that TPM module.
However, apparently there are some ways you can even get around that,
but it's a little bit more difficult.
So at least it's not the end of the world.
Now again, if you guys want to keep watching the next video I'd recommend
is definitely my TPM compatibility guide, basically where I did go over
how to figure out if your computer does have a TPM module after all, and how
you can potentially get one or find out if your motherboard supports it
if not.
So definitely check that out.
You can click on that there.
And if you guys want to subscribe, I make a couple of new videos a
week, so it should be worth it.
So thanks so much for watching guys and I'll see you the next one.