They chose an arbitrary cut-off date for hardware support for their new OS. They decided not to support old stuff anymore and they had to pick a date/technology platform. It was always going to be arbitrary. In my opinion they should've picked a clearer distinction (i.e. require a certain level of AVX support so all binaries can be built with AVX optimizations enabled) but I can see why they chose to do this. After all, they're going to have to support the OS for ten years, that four year old CPU is fourteen years old by the time Windows 11 goes out of support.
That link does not say it will work fine. It says it is not recommended or supported and if it blows up it is your problem. Additionally it says you might not get any updates. Certainly, it sounds like it might just be some ass covering on their part but they were also testing a nag watermark for unsupported installs like this so maybe not. Either way it doesn't sound like a really solid path forward.
It's certainly not a path forward that Microsoft will recommend. It'll work fine, though.
If not, there are other operating systems that do work. Microsoft isn't the exclusive owner of the PC space, that's one of the major points of all of the antitrust fines and lawsuits.
He said it'll work fine, not that Microsoft is promoting it as such.
There're no fundamental changes to what's actually required, the limitations are arbitrary and set by Microsoft (and they provide a means to get around them).
It can work yes but AMD chips didn't get GMET until Zen2 so if you leave virtualization based protection on you might see a performance hit.
From Microsoft's website:
>Memory integrity works better with Intel Kabylake and higher processors with Mode-Based Execution Control, and AMD Zen 2 and higher processors with Guest Mode Execute Trap capabilities. Older processors rely on an emulation of these features, called Restricted User Mode, and will have a bigger impact on performance.
Which is amazing since windows 11 is full of mentions of green energy, lowering energy consumption and asking you to lower screen brightness to lower carbon emissions. Total green washing when you consider the gigantic amounts of ewaste that arbitrary cut off date will lead to. It's just funny tbh, like I get it's most likely very different teams working on those things but it's tone deaf at best.
But hey at least the OS has a revolutionary new green technology called... Battery saving mode!
The worst part is that it is clearly cargo culting. What consumer suddenly buys kool aid they never bought before because it says "paper straw now!" on the packaging?
True. It is not as though I've ever cared about what the vendor supports at home before.
Most of my machines were on a Linux distro before that decision, and Debian 12 is providing a good enough to me experience on the desktop, even gaming.
I'll probably just stay there indefinitely. Is that an upgrade? Subjective. I'm happier here.
IIRC it has more to do with that series of chip not having GMET (AMD Guest-Mode Execute Trap for NPT) which is used in Windows 10/11s virtualization based protection. Microsoft requires this option for all new PCs from their partners but you can install windows 11 and run it fine without this CPU feature (there is a performance hit if you leave virtualization based protection on though since it has to be done in software).
