Microsoft closes the door on Windows 11 supporting older {hardware}

Microsoft has poured chilly water on any hopes of decrease {hardware} necessities for Windows 11. With Windows 10 finish of help approaching in October 2025, the software program big now says that its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is “non-negotiable.”

TPM was a shock requirement for Windows 11 when it was first introduced in 2021, and now virtually each fashionable PC ships with help for TPM 2.0. It’s a hardware-level chip or firmware functionality that helps encrypt or decrypt knowledge, affirm digital signatures, and help with every other cryptographic operations.

“TPM 2.0 performs a vital position in enhancing id and knowledge safety on Windows units, in addition to sustaining the integrity of your system,” says Steven Hosking, a senior product supervisor at Microsoft. “TPM 2.0 additionally helps future-proof Windows 11. One approach it does so is by serving to to guard delicate data as extra AI capabilities come to bodily, cloud, and server structure.”

Microsoft particulars how TPM integrates with new safety features in Windows 11 like Credential Guard and Windows Hello for Business, in addition to BitLocker disk encryption. TPM 2.0 additionally helps help Secure Boot, a key expertise that secures the boot course of from any unauthorized modifications.

Hosking says Microsoft has applied TPM 2.0 “as a non-negotiable commonplace for the way forward for Windows,” so there’s no going again on the {hardware} necessities right here. Microsoft additionally requires that Windows 11 units are able to virtualization-based safety and hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), which suggests Windows 11 is just supported on CPUs launched from 2018 onward.

Despite the necessities, there have been a number of workarounds over time to permit Windows 11 to run on unsupported {hardware}. Microsoft didn’t apply a hardware-compliance verify initially for virtualized variations of Windows 11, however the firm has been regularly locking down the improve and setup course of in recent times — particularly with the 24H2 replace.

The improved compatibility checks with 24H2 have pressured instruments like Flyby11 to leverage a characteristic of the Windows 11 setup that makes use of a Windows Server variant of the set up to bypass the {hardware} compatibility checks. Businesses may also use Microsoft’s official Windows 11 LTSC 2024 launch, which makes TPM an non-obligatory requirement however nonetheless enforces an inventory of appropriate CPUs.