Microsoft to Relax Windows 11 Requirements!

With Microsoft likely set to imminently confirm the upcoming release date of Windows 11, while there is certainly a lot of excitement building around the new operating system, it’s hard to deny that its rather terse system requirements will be leaving a lot of people (and systems) behind. – Following an official update, however, fresh information is suggesting that Microsoft is set to confirm a new version of Windows 11 that should, by and large, run on practically anything! – With though, as you might expect, a few caveats throw into the mix.

Windows 11

Although pending confirmation, it’s understood that Windows 11 has been modified to no longer require the current system requirements it has (not that people didn’t find workarounds to a lot of older processors). This isn’t just limited to the processors though, but also those pesky BIOS settings regarding TMP 2.0 and Secure Boot. – Put simply, as long as your system has the following specs, and again pending an official announcement/update from Microsoft, this is all your system (be it a PC or laptop) will need to have to run Windows 11:

• Processor – 1GHz clock rate
• Memory – 4GB of RAM
• Storage – 64GB of free space

It should also be noted that the PC Health Check App is no longer available to download pending this modified version being launched on Windows Insider. – And if you want proof this is true, check out the link here direct from Microsoft’s own (metaphorical) mouth!

What Do We THink?

While this is certainly interesting, and particularly to those of you who were not Windows 11 compatible, there are apparently going to be two notable drawbacks to this ‘off specification’ installation. Firstly, it will have to be manually installed, meaning that the Windows automatic update tool will provide you with no help or support in the process. And secondly, and this is an interesting one, it’s being suggested that this ‘minimum requirement’ installation of Windows 11 will not come with updates of any description. It’ll effectively be a one-shot standalone and effectively unsupported (from a security standpoint) version of the operating system. – This does seem to already be confirmed by people who have installed Windows 11 on ‘incompatible’ systems.

Call me a cynic though, but I can’t see this ‘update’ aspect being true. While Microsoft undoubtedly wants the Windows 11 adoption rate to be strong, I can’t see them offering an effectively ‘watered-down’ version, especially one without any updates, to the general public.

We will, of course, be keeping a close eye on this. On the whole, though, this does feel to be something of a relatively predictable, if not logical, move from Microsoft. Just one that, at least at the time of writing, seems more than a little bizarre in its application.

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!