UPDATE: 2025-08-12 17:28 EST BY CORBIN DAVENPORT
Microsoft Confirms No Change
Microsoft has nowupdated its support documentabout Windows 11 on unsupported hardware to clarify, “At the time of publication and still today, the intention behind this support page is to detail considerations for customers to understand the implications of installing Windows 11 against Microsoft’s recommendation on devices that don’t meet system requirements for Windows 11.” The original article continues below.
Several reports have indicated Microsoft is finally allowing Windows 11 to be installed on unsupported PCs. Unfortunately, those reports are false, and you will still need workarounds to bypass the hardware checks in the Windows 11 installer.
Windows 11 has much steeper requirements than Windows 10, preventing PCs with older CPUs, no TPM 2.0 support, and no Secure Boot from officially upgrading. There areworkarounds, but they aren’t officially sanctioned and could theoretically break at any time. Microsoft alreadybroke Windows 11 installs on incredibly old CPUsthat were never close to the official requirements, and it’s possible future updates will demand features that can’t be hacked onto older systems.
Microsoft has resisted calls to lower the official requirements, especially withfree updates ending for Windows 10 in October 2025. In fact, Microsoft doubled downearlier this month—the company published a blog post explaining why TPM 2.0 and other requirements are important, seemingly shutting the door on the idea of more old PCs being officially upgradable.
Severaltechnewsoutletsarereportingthat Microsoft has now reversed this policy, citing a new Microsoft support document that explains, “If Windows 11 is installed on ineligible hardware, you should be comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.” The support document is not actually new—the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine indicates the document waspublished in 2021with the same warning text.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to ask for more confirmation, and we will update this article when we hear back. For now, though, there’s no evidence Microsoft is changing its mind.
