Errius wrote on 2024-05-08, 13:13:
The Windows 11 TPM 2.0 requirement is a big problem, though. That's what is going to finally render these computers retro.
The TPM requirement is BS. The more concerning requirement is the 8th gen Intel processor requirement. (Every processor that meets the processor requirement, plus a whole bunch that don't like my i7-7700, have fTPMs) But that's also BS, at least for now. If you disable the check for those hardware features (or use something like Rufus which will do it for you), Windows 11 will work just fine on... pretty much all x64 machines that could run 10.
Doesn't need UEFI. Doesn't need secure boot. Doesn't need TPM. Doesn't need 8th gen Intel or whatever the equivalent AMD is. Oldest machine I've tried 11 on is a 45nm C2Q with a P43/ICH10R board. Runs just fine.
Fundamentally, they never told the engineering team "hey guys, the new baseline is X", so the engineering team hasn't actually put in any hard dependencies on any of those things. What they did tell the engineering team is not to compile it for 32-bit systems. But ultimately, MS reserves the right to ship a monthly patch that will break it on any machine without those, so certainly if you're a business user, you can't gamble on running 11 unsupportedly. And if you're a not-too-technical home user who barely uses a PC anymore and you get gloomy warnings from MS about impending malware doom when 10 falls out of support, this may be the nudge that gets you to go all-smartphone-centric.
Now, the word on the street is that the next big build (24H2? Windows 12? Who knows what it will be shipped as...) will require some CPU instructions that will leave the 45nm C2Q behind.