Microsoft undoubtedly has some really odd set of requirements for Windows 11. A survey by IT management company Lansweeper has confirmed that only 44.44% of workstations met Microsoft CPU requirements. Out of them, only 52.55 percent had TPM 2.0 chips. This means that a large section of PC users will not be able to fulfill the TPM chip requirements and will hence not be able to upgrade to the new OS.
And it’s not just the TPM 2.0 that’s being taken into account. Microsoft has also set a threshold for the generation of processors required – at Intel’s 8th generation chips. There are a couple of 7th generation processors as well that have made the cut including the i7-7820HQ, but even 7th-gen chips are fairly recent in terms of PC years.
In short, if your PC is older than 2017, it will simply be unable to run Windows 11. Of course, four years is by no means a reasonable period, but for enterprises, it is pretty average.
The implication of this is that most enterprises will not be upgrading to Windows 11 early on considering the amount of capital investment it will require.
The excuses given for this move by Microsoft were security, compatibility, and reliability.
Moreover, servers fared worse in this regard (via: The Register). The survey showed that less than 1% of virtual machines were capable of running the OS as per Microsoft’s requirements.
Further compounding the problem is the fact that Windows 11 is radically different when compared to Windows 10. Due to this, there are concerns about retraining costs suggesting companies will not be getting on board the Windows 11 train anytime soon.
With most new PCs coming in with Windows 11, consumers are bound to make the switch. However the same cannot be said about enterprises. this might lead to an extremely fragmented market similar to when both Windows XP and Windows 7 were dominant at the same time.
Microsoft is obviously aware of this and has promised long-term support for Windows 10 until 2025. But a fragmentation problem is still quite likely.
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