Microsoft has taken a tough stance on Windows 11’s minimum hardware requirements, and the company is now notifying users when their hardware isn’t responding via a system message.
Testers have found that the recent Windows 11 preview update displays a watermark on the desktop wallpaper when it detects that hardware is unavailable. Meet Microsoft’s strict minimum requirementsas reported by The Verge. It also generates an alert in the Settings app.
Microsoft requires PC hardware with at least 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage; UEFI secure boot is enabled; DirectX 12 or later compatible graphics card, with WDDM 2.0 driver; and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0.
SEE: Windows 11: Latest updates bring a wave of new features
The company is aiming to increase security, but The requirements are also aimed at making Windows better for games future release via DirectX 12, important after mega $21.6 billion to acquire Activision in January.
Microsoft’s New Minimum Requirement Alert coming to Windows 11 users on March 15 in Build 22000.588 (KB5011563) for Windows Insiders on the Release and Beta Preview Channel.
Microsoft chose not to mention the new minimum requirement warnings in the release notes for that build. However, testers definitely noticed when the operating system shows the message “System requirements not met”.
The minimum requirements for Windows 11 are not that high. For example, most smartphones have exceeded it. However, that is still a problem for consumers with older but still working hardware who don’t want to buy a new toolkit, and for businesses with a large part of their group consists of hardware that is not suitable for Windows 11.
Microsoft left a loophole for those who want Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, but such users cannot be guaranteed to receive security updates from Windows Update.
The company is betting that By 2025, when Windows 10 support ends, all customers will be able to switch to Windows 11 and that minimum hardware requirement shouldn’t be an issue as businesses typically refresh their hardware every three to five years.
However, as The Verge pointed out, Windows 11 today only officially supports Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen+ and Zen 2 CPUs and up.
The official Microsoft documentation is this and its requirements for Windows 11 on Intel, AMD and Arm are this.
