It is the year 2025. Come October, Windows 10 will reach end of life. I have some computers running Windows 11. But I also have a few computers running Windows 10 that haven’t been upgraded yet. They haven’t been upgraded because the PC Health Check application tells me the computers don’t meet the requirements for Windows 11. I was surprised the first time that I saw this. The computer’s configuration isn’t on the weak side. It has 160 gigs RAM, a Xeon series processor running in 3.0 GHz, RTX 3090 video. In every version of Windows prior to 11, new Windows releases would generally run on hardware from the previous version of Windows, even if that meant running with diminished experience.
There are two issues on which my computer fails. (Note: When Windows 11 first started rolling out, the upgrade would not give me informative reasons for not installing making the problem even more perplexing). The computer didn’t have a TPM, and the processor isn’t supported. The TPM problem is an easy one to address. I could just buy a TPM for less than 20 USD and plug it into the motherboard. But why the processor wasn’t supported was confusing. But within the past week, I saw a post in the Microsoft Answers forum that, while speculative, gave me a bit of relevant information. I am [re]posting the message in its entirety.
(Speculation with facts…perhaps at least a level frame of reference when explaining ‘why’ to the higher ups when it’s time)
Your unsupported processor(s) are a security risk to MS moving forward. It’s not about speed, or cores, cache size, or anything like that.
It’s all about the older architecture.In 2018 modern CPUs were affected by serious design flaws that enabled the Spectre and Meltdown side channel attacks. Microsoft had to release patches for Windows that slowed down PCs with older CPUs. This let Windows work around the security problems in these processors. A band-aid basically.
As recently as November 2021 Intel confirmed two high severity vulnerabilities concerning almost every flavor of Xeon processor.
Intel (and other CPU manufacturers, to some degree) would totally have to rearchitect their older CPU designs to truly patch these security weaknesses.
(…and you know that’s not going to happen)(The important part here)
Intel said that Spectre and Meltdown were addressed with hardware level changes starting with the Intel 8th-generation CPUs. I find it super interesting that Windows 11 requires 8th-generation CPUs or newer? I imagine this is very related. Of course, Microsoft isn’t screaming from the rooftops that PCs with older CPUs are fundamentally insecure at a hardware level compared to new devices. That wouldn’t be good for business. But it seems like Microsoft wants to quietly move everyone to new hardware so Microsoft knows it only has to support Windows 11 on CPUs with these security fixes.
That’s business I suppose… Hope that helps!
Having read that it may be a security concern but not a capabilities issue, I decided to move forward with trying to upgrade. I purchased a TPM. It showed up the next day. Note that some motherboards have a TPM built in that must be enabled first, or may required a firmware update. After plugging it in, I knew that there was a registry change that I would need to make force the installation. The key is located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup. There should be a DWORD value in this location named AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU. Ensure that this element has it’s value set to 1. After this change, I tried to perform the upgrade. It ran without complaint and so far things have been working fine. Having a TPM appears to be the most important feature. Without one, the Windows Installation will not complete.
Should you Try This?
As much as I would love to give you a plain “yes” or “no” answer on this, I can’t. I can understand the position that Microsoft might be in. If this decision is in fact a response to the Spectre bug, then this route is associated with higher security risks. I can’t tell you to take that risk. On the other hand, with Windows 10 security updates coming to an end (unless someone pays for them) raises risks (or costs) with not migrating over. That’s an assessment that you’ll have to make on your own. For more information on the nature of the bug that is speculated to be behind this decision, at least in part, see the Wikipedia entry about it.
Enabling or Acquiring a TPM
You should first check your BIOS/UEFI to see if TPM settings are present within it to be enabled. If there are not any settings, check your motherboard. Many motherboards will have unpopulated sockets in them which are labeled. Search for one labeled TPM. If you find it, take note of pin positions in the socket and whether there are any pins missing. Your motherboard may also be labeled with a manufacturer. In my cases, I found one TPM specifically for Gigabyte motherboards and another generic 20-pin (technically 19, wince one position is blank) for another motherboard. I was able to source my TPMs from Amazon.
j2i.net 