Originally Posted By: cooltouch
Personally, I do not like the idea of embedding code into hardware. I just don't like it, no matter what the hardware is or what its purpose is. Except maybe BIOS, but that's it.

From a quick Google, every Intel computer since 2008 has had the Intel Management Engine built into it, and every AMD computer since 2013 (maybe earlier) has the AMD Platform Security Processor. Both of which use proprietary embedded code for a variety of things. Going further back, most motherboards had an embedded controller of some sort. Unless you don't mind running really old hardware or you design your own, this kind of stuff is inescapable no matter what OS you use.

Originally Posted By: sslechta
Hey Michael, check out my post over in Off Topic:

Installed Windows 11 on Laptop Successfully!

There's some tools you can use to check your system and some prep things you can do with your machine to get it ready. My laptop CPU is 8 years old and I was able to get it working flawlessly so far. I think that although Microsoft has a lot of requirements, they want your machine to be more secure from attack. Once you go through some of these steps prior to upgrade, I think you'll feel a little better about it. I'm a huge tech nerd and wanted to dive in right away to share my experiences with all of you.

While I agree that the CPU cutoff Microsoft decided on is higher than it needs to be, one of the reasons they decided this is likely due to the other associated hardware and any required drivers. Many of the companies that produce sound chips, LAN controllers, WiFi, etc probably don't want to create Windows 11 drivers for decade-old hardware.

I don't personally recommend installing Windows 11 on unsupported devices, as there can be a host of problems involved. An older unsupported computer might be able to boot Windows 11 and might appear to be stable, but might end up having very strange and seemingly unrelated problems. Your mileage may vary, but from my experience working in tech support here and at previous companies, the users who have problems are most often users with the oldest hardware, and exponentially more when running an unsupported OS.

That said, I'll personally be running Windows 11 on a 4th gen i7 desktop with no TPM for at least a few months, so I'll see how it is.

I work here