Microsoft has poured chilly water on any hopes of decrease {hardware} necessities for Home windows 11. With Home windows 10 finish of assist approaching in October 2025, the software program big now says that its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 requirement for Home windows 11 is “non-negotiable.”
TPM was a shock requirement for Home windows 11 when it was first introduced in 2021, and now virtually each fashionable PC ships with assist for TPM 2.0. It’s a hardware-level chip or firmware functionality that helps encrypt or decrypt information, affirm digital signatures, and help with some other cryptographic operations.
“TPM 2.0 performs a vital position in enhancing id and information safety on Home 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 Home windows 11. A method 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 security measures in Home windows 11 like Credential Guard and Home windows Hiya for Enterprise, in addition to BitLocker disk encryption. TPM 2.0 additionally helps assist Safe 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 customary for the way forward for Home windows,” so there’s no going again on the {hardware} necessities right here. Microsoft additionally requires that Home windows 11 units are able to virtualization-based safety and hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), which suggests Home windows 11 is barely supported on CPUs launched from 2018 onward.
Regardless of the necessities, there have been a number of workarounds through the years to permit Home windows 11 to run on unsupported {hardware}. Microsoft didn’t apply a hardware-compliance test initially for virtualized variations of Home windows 11, however the firm has been steadily 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 Home windows 11 setup that makes use of a Home windows Server variant of the set up to bypass the {hardware} compatibility checks. Companies may also use Microsoft’s official Home windows 11 LTSC 2024 launch, which makes TPM an optionally available requirement however nonetheless enforces an inventory of suitable CPUs.
