Even the briefest stint of searching online for information on Windows 11 compatibility reveals a plethora of headlines: “Microsoft drops support for 8th, 9th, and 10th gen processors,” “Microsoft now supports installing Windows 11 on older PCs,” “How to install Windows 11 on your older PC….” With so many conflicting reports, It’s hard to decipher what is real.
There is an element of truth in each of the aforementioned headlines and this brief article will help demystify the conflict that seems to abound online.
First and foremost, what does Windows 11 support? This is very straight forward. Microsoft states that PCs are required to have TPM 2.0 in order to properly install windows. That’s it! TPM 2.0 is generally available on 8th Gen intel processors and newer. If you meet those requirements, you can upgrade to Windows 11 without fuss!
But what about reports of Microsoft dropping support of 8th, 9th, and 10th Gen Intel CPU’s from their list of CPUs supported under Windows 11?! This is only partly true. Microsoft only updated it’s list for OEM’s implying that moving forward with WIndows 11 24H2, 11th Gen and newer Intel CPUs are needed to support native integration of Copilot (Microsoft’s new integrated AI helper). Copilot can still be installed on 8th – 10th Gen CPUs, but newer CPUs are more optimized for the technology.
This begs the question then, what about CPUs older than 8th Gen? While Microsoft is constantly locking-down the loopholes in the Windows installer that allow you to ‘hack’ the installation to work on older hardware, they still exist. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft does not support the older hardware in that you will not receive driver updates and that they will not guarantee an error-free operating system. They also note that the older hardware cannot take advantage of Windows 11 native support for hardware security features (i.e. TPM 2.0).
Bottom line: yes, you can install Windows 11 on CPUs older than 8th Gen, but you shouldn’t. That’s just a can of windows-errors-nightmares you don’t want to open. Yes, you can still install Windows 11 on 8th – 10th Gen CPUs, but you might limit yourself in the Microsoft Copilot performance arena. Ultimately, if you want a smooth, fully-supported Windows 11 experience, go with an 11th Gen or newer CPU-based system.
This article is meant to be a very high-level and was written to not bore you with the technical and corporate minutia. We hope you find this information useful!
