Windows 11: Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns (Premium)

In honor of the late Donald Rumsfeld, I’d like to address what’s happening with the Windows 11 hardware requirements, at least right now in this slice of time. As we’ve already seen, and as we’re no doubt going to experience repeatedly going forward, things are going to change.

The problem, of course, is Microsoft’s inability to communicate effectively. When you think about it, most of the issues we have with the software giant---certainly, most of the issues I have---are tied to this same problem. It’s like we’re living in Groundhog Day but it doesn’t matter what we do because Microsoft will keep making the same kind of blunder over and over and over again.

Anyway, here we are. So let’s take a step back, examine what Microsoft has communicated to us about the Windows 11 hardware requirements, and how that’s both changed with time and has never really matched the reality of the situation.

In the days leading up to the Windows 11 reveal, Microsoft invited some journalists and bloggers to an off-the-record pre-briefing in which it said it would set expectations. This would have been the ideal time to be clear about the hardware requirements, but Microsoft is always Microsoft, and that’s not what happened. Instead, the assembled press was told that Microsoft was finally raising the system requirements---after not doing so in Windows 7, 8, and 10---but only to slightly better CPUs than before; 1.2 GHz vs. 1.0 GHz, and dual-core vs. single core. And it revealed that Windows 11 Home would require an Internet connection and a Microsoft account (MSA) during the initial Setup.

Naturally, everyone who attended that meeting came away believing that that latter condition would be the big controversy surrounding the Windows 11 launch. But as we now know, of course, that’s not the case. Windows 11’s hardware requirements, which were much more stringent than Microsoft had let on, would emerge as the bigger issue.

When Microsoft announced Windows 11 on Thursday, June 24, it published a very Apple-like promotional page on its website that highlights new features in the coming OS. And there, once again, we see the same vague hardware requirements: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster CPU with 2 or more cores on a compatible 64-bit processor or System on a Chip (SoC), 4 GB of RAM or more, 64 GB or larger storage device, and firmware that supports UEFI, Secure Boot, and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0.

That “compatible 64-bit processor” is interesting for two reasons. First, as we discussed during the launch, Windows 11 will for the first time not support 32-bit processors and will not be made available in a 32-bit version as was Windows 10 and previous Windows versions. Second, Microsoft links that text to its Windows Processor Requirements page on the Microsoft Docs website. And that page links to separate pages for AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm processors that, at the time, told a very interesting story. (T...

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