Windows 11 can be installed on incompatible PCs, but its not a good idea

Microsoft seemingly waves Windows 11’s official hardware requirements – users of incompatible systems will face issues

Microsoft has officially released a dedicated web page about “Installing Windows 11 on devices that don’t meet minimum system requirements,” seemingly confirming that PC users can run the latest version of Windows on “incompatible” PCs.

While Microsoft has released a webpage about it, using Windows 11 on unsupported hardware is far from recommended. Note that Microsoft says that users who do this should be “comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.” Additionally, Microsoft says that their device “might malfunction” and that users “aren’t guaranteed to receive updates.” In other words, Microsoft will not support Windows 11 users on incompatible hardware if they choose to upgrade.

Note that Microsoft’s webpage does not provide instructions on how to install Windows 11 on incompatible PCs. Instead, it tells users to use the PC Health Check app to check their Windows 11 eligibility and tells them how to revert to Windows 10 if they run into issues.

Microsoft’s support for Windows 10 is ending, and most Windows 11 PCs are incompatible with Windows 11

Support for Windows 1o will end in October 2025, which means that a lot of PCs will soon stop receiving security updates. Not all Windows 10 PCs support Windows 11. In fact, only CPUs with TPM 2.0 support the OS. For desktop PC users, AMD Ryzen 2000 series (Zen+), Intel Core 8th Gen, and newer CPUs can support Microsoft’s latest OS. PCs with older CPUs do not support Windows 11, which means that users of those PCs are expected to buy new systems.

Microsoft is unwilling to back down from Windows 11’s annoying hardware requirements. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 support enabled higher levels of hardware security. This protects users from some types of attacks. Regardless, TPM 2.0 support requirements have remained controversial for Microsoft since the launch of Windows 11.

If Microsoft completely abandons its TPM 2.0 requirement, the company will support Windows 11 on almost all Windows 10-based PCs. Aside from TPM 2.0, Windows 11 only needs a dual-core 1GHz+ CPU, 4GB of RAM, a DX12 compatible GPU, and 64GB of storage. This would be a nightmare for Microsoft. After all, this would considerably increase the number of hardware configurations that they need to support.

Microsoft will no longer support Windows 10 PCs after October 2025. These users should upgrade to Windows 11 if their hardware supports it. If not, it’s probably time to buy a new PC. Alternatively, they could install Linux on their PC and continue using it. While Windows 11 can be installed on incompatible PCs, Microsoft isn’t promising users of these configurations software updates or a good user experience. As such, this option probably isn’t worth exploring.

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