Discussion Theories for why Win11 has shall we say 'unusual' official system requirements

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
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And by 'unusual' I mean the "processor must be ~2018 or later", TPM and secure boot.

My theories are:

1 - Microsoft was throwing a bone to OEMs after offering Win10 for 'older PCs' for free which would no doubt have cut into their bottom line a bit.
2 - Microsoft has a massive crush on Apple and seeks to emulate them wherever possible.
3 - Microsoft was attempting to ensure as much as possible that PCs running Win11 are likely to be running reasonably recent drivers / recently supported hardware. Pushing too far might have its own undesirable consequences, for example if someone wants to pay for a Windows 11 licence for a Win11 VM, then why make it difficult for them to do that.

I've never been particularly satisfied with the first two theories and recently came up with the third. To explain that theory a bit further, I'll start by suggesting that many people are idiots. One example of this is that if I in my role as computer tech advisor explain something to a customer in pretty simple terms, often if they tell their partner what I've just explained, the full explanation won't make the journey or some simpler, flawed version will replace it (which often makes me cringe because if that version reaches the ears of someone reasonably knowledgeable, they would wonder WTH I'm telling people this for). Furthermore, it's common enough where if someone has used operating system X from twenty years ago and decided to migrate to OS Y, they will think that their criticisms of X from 20 years ago are likely to still be valid compared to <current version of Y>. Therefore if someone received the option from MS to in-place upgrade their install of Win7 to Win10 and then on to Win11, then Win11 doesn't work too well on their ancient setup, it wouldn't surprise me if said person started complaining that Win11 is rubbish because it isn't working on their particular PC too well.

I'm not putting forward this theory because I advocate it, I just think it fits with the available evidence better than either of my other two theories. Of course, all three theories could be correct :)

Feel free to discuss / put forward your own theories.
 
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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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I'm thinking they just decided to cut back on the amount of effort required to try to make it compatible with so many different platforms. By having such tight requirements it basically reduces the amount of hardware they have to test on and restrict to brand new hardware.

They most likely don't really like people who build their own PCs as we are the more likely people to just pirate windows vs actually buying a license, and they should have enough pull to ensure that OEMs build machines that fit their requirements. So essentially they are filtering out a huge demographic that they don't really want to deal with and focusing on OEMs. At least that's my theory. Most of us are not going to be building a new machine every time up upgrade an OS.

The TPM stuff might also be used for their telemetry, I presume all that data is encrypted on the fly and TPM allows to do it at hardware level so it's faster? I know people have found reg hacks to bypass TPM requirement so I wonder if there's any performance changes for those who do that.
 
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mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
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I'm thinking they just decided to cut back on the amount of effort required to try to make it compatible with so many different platforms. By having such tight requirements it basically reduces the amount of hardware they have to test on and restrict to brand new hardware.

Win11 is working for me on AM3 hardware. Logically Microsoft made no effort to make it work, yet it does because frankly Win11 is barely any different to Win10 under the bonnet. The graphics driver on one of the AM3 builds is dated 2010, logically no effort went into ensuring that Win10 worked with AM3 either.
 
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Jul 27, 2020
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Microsoft badly needs to offer an open source version of Windows that offers at least Windows 7 level of functionality to run legacy Win32 applications. Then the community can worry about patches and keeping it up to date with the latest stuff like Internet security and future web protocols while Microsoft can focus on its "OEMs enticing" version with AI features and whatnot.

The OSS Windows would essentially become a competitor to Linux and it would be a BETTER competitor because theoretically there should be less API/binary fragmentation, unless the community starts messing with the core Win32 API calls themselves.

OK, a solution to that could be that Microsoft creates certain core blobs (like the Win32 API blob) that is immutable so the community cannot mess with the core of what makes Windows, Windows.
 
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tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
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The security argument is a total canard. I have yet to see 8th or 9th gen system that could run the full security features introduced in Windows 11 e.g. Virtual Based Security, Core Isolation and Memory Protection features, due to driver or BIOS firmware limitation, bug, or other problem. We have 10th gen Acer laptop that cannot run them, due to driver, BIOS problem (it never specifies the offending device driver or firmware).

So there are millions of "W11 supported" systems out there that are basically just running at Windows 10 security feature level because something in their configuration is on Microsoft's 'problem device driver or firmware' black list, or when enabling these things, result in app or system crashes.
 
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myindjon

Junior Member
Aug 11, 2023
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My theory is simple. An evil deal between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. By forcing users to buy advanced hardware to upgrade to Windows 11, hardware manufacturers get more sales and money.

If not, why does the MS stop security updates for Windows 10 (I understand about the 3 year Extended Security Update Program)?
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
18,929
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My theory is simple. An evil deal between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers. By forcing users to buy advanced hardware to upgrade to Windows 11, hardware manufacturers get more sales and money.

If not, why does the MS stop security updates for Windows 10 (I understand about the 3 year Extended Security Update Program)?

Win10 is reaching (as of Oct 2025) the end of Microsoft's standard ten-year support time frame for Windows. IIRC Windows XP was the only recent-ish exception to that rule (supported for 13 years IIRC).