Microsoft provides clarifications on Win11 specs, says it is evaluating in adding 7th gen CPUs and Ryzen 1 series CPUs

[Kilrah]

28 minutes ago, tikker said:

I'm not sure what you mean. Because updates go beyond speed alone and I'm not saying it's slow because it's old? I'm saying that stating your 3770k to be faster than a chip that is designed to efficient, not fast is a strange comparison to make.

You must have missed the original point that was "MS decides to lock out my old fast processor when they allow new slower ones".

 

It's becasue it's not a question of performance but CPU features and the OP didn't get that, but in their thought process that was still a valid comparison to make...

[RedRound2]

3 hours ago, tikker said:

How does that comparison make sense. You are comparing a top of the line overclockable (desktop) CPU with ultra and exreme low power (laptop) chips. Hardly fair no? Why, when making this argument, do people so often compare the highest enthusiast tier OC model to the lowest tier power effeciencey focussed chips. Compare your 3770k to a 7700k, or a 10700k.

WTF? Did you even read the whole paragraph I wrote? Can you please go up and read again.

 

I am asking Microsoft on what justification they have that Windows 11 can run on 8th gen U and Y processors compared to my 3rd gen 3770k. It is certainly not performance because my 3rd gen is still more powerful than the new low powererd processor.

 

And if say it's features of newer processors, what feature exactly? What features would not allow an operating system similar to Windows 10 suddenly make older processors choke? Mandating something like an SSD boot drive makes more sense for "improved user experience". Locking out older performance chips on the grounds that "it's older" makes no sense. And I doubt there's anything special about Windows 11 that won't make it run on a Core 2 duo as well

[TudorF]

@RedRound2

Might be that they went the Apple route and added a lot more UI animations and eye candy which need CPUs with higher IPC.

Except that they don't have the Quartz graphics library built as a special layer into the OS like Apple does, so they need to raise the bar of hardware requirements to ensure there will be a smooth OS experience.

[Kilrah]

14 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

What features would not allow an operating system similar to Windows 10 suddenly make older processors choke?

None becasue it's got nothing to do with performance but the improved security features and likely mitigations for known security vulnerabilities.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Nah, I genuinely do think these changes were intended to protect users and go some way towards fixing the "Windows is insecure and full of virii" view most people have.

 

They just took it WAAAAY further than they had to.

 

If that were true then the opening of the MS Store to basically everyone wouldn't make any sense. If you're going to lock down your OS then you don't allow its built in store to serve unverified apps.

It's insecure and full of virri because it's usable and used by everyone. On Linux I was asked to enter admin password friggin 8 times consecutively because I removed 8 apps. Absolutely moronic. There is a fine line between being obnoxiously secure and irritating as fuck and secure but still not annoying. Windows 10 is there imo. If Linux magically had 80% of the market you can be sure it would have the same fate. Mostly because they'd have to dumb it down so much so it wouldn't do this dumb asking for password non stop or people would dumb it down by using passwords like 1234 to get over stupid security dialogs faster. Or just disable the whole thing so it's not so irritating. That's just the reality of it. Linux fanboys can bang about it all they want, no one wants to use OS that constantly bugs you about stupid password for most mundane things like removing KSolitaire and KSweeper or whatever the F they are called on Kubuntu.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

You must have missed the original point that was "MS decides to lock out my old fast processor when they allow new slower ones".

 

It's becasue it's not a question of performance but CPU features and the OP didn't get that, but in their thought process that was still a valid comparison to make...

But CPU features being the reason and not performance is what I am saying? They lock out the old ones, because the features they use seem to not be supported for those CPUs, in one way or another (or in the best case will need to be emulated, possibly suffering a massive performance hit in return). You even say this yourself:

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

None becasue it's got nothing to do with performance but the improved security features and likely mitigations for known security vulnerabilities.

That's why I was saying it doesn't make sense to compare speed while in addition comparing completely opposite performance ends of the lineups. So I don't think we are contradicting each other?

 

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

WTF? Did you even read the whole paragraph I wrote? Can you please go up and read again.

 

I am asking Microsoft on what justification they have that Windows 11 can run on 8th gen U and Y processors compared to my 3rd gen 3770k. It is certainly not performance because my 3rd gen is still more powerful than the new low powererd processor.

 

And if say it's features of newer processors, what feature exactly? What features would not allow an operating system similar to Windows 10 suddenly make older processors choke? Mandating something like an SSD boot drive makes more sense for "improved user experience". Locking out older performance chips on the grounds that "it's older" makes no sense. And I doubt there's anything special about Windows 11 that won't make it run on a Core 2 duo as well

I did read your post, but ok let's dissect it in full then:

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

This is so stupid. What does Windows 11 have that exclusively requires 7th gen Intel and later? For a "better" expereince, they should mandate something meaningful like SSDs on OEM laptops. Most people are still fine with dual core processors from Sandy bridge era for their needs and Microsoft is basically forcing fragmentation onto their eco system.

Your own words seem to be the best reponse: please go up and read again. The supposed features related to this are mentioned in the first quote of the topic and throughout this thread. They aren't supported or will need to be emulated on older hardware and that can apparently give a huge performance hit.

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Also my 3770K is certainly faster than than a modern U or a Y series chip, so this makes even less sense

I don't know what else to say, you are literally saying here that your 3770k being faster than a low power efficiency-oriented chip is a reason they should support it.

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Why has Microsoft always been run by such dumb dumbs? They're only relevent today because of their early market grapple with Windows. 

Eh. Same thing can be said about Google, Apple, Steam etc. They were either first or the first ones to make something popular and survived, from which now they can enjoy brand recognition.

[GoodBytes]

5 hours ago, tikker said:

 

Wow @LAwLz I'm impressed with your detective work in the other thread predicting HVCI and VBS to be (part of) the reason (or Microsoft saw your explanation and stole it to save themselves )

Actually, it was in the docs from Microsoft.

 

[Arika]

People: windows is so bloated, stop forcing legacy things for things and recode your os. 

 

MS: OK

 

People: why are they not supporting old things anymore? Fucking Microsoft. 

[RejZoR]

17 minutes ago, Arika S said:

People: windows is so bloated, stop forcing legacy things for things and recode your os. 

 

MS: OK

 

People: why are they not supporting old things anymore? Fucking Microsoft. 

Because MS being MS would drop Ryzen 3000 and shill 5000 series only if it was on them. They are that stupid. They are like a little child who always overreacts and never does anything right. And by legacy people mean stop dragging stupid Internet Explorer with the OS when you've released 2 entirely new iterations of it. Not removing CPU support for CPU's that are very much capable and modern by any metric.

[LAwLz]

33 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Actually, it was in the docs from Microsoft.

Maybe I missed it, but I am pretty sure it wasn't.

 

This is the first time I am seeing Microsoft pointing out things like "you need these CPUs because we will enable features like HVCI".

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, RejZoR said:

On Linux I was asked to enter admin password friggin 8 times consecutively because I removed 8 apps. Absolutely moronic.

You can change that behavior fyi.

[steelo]

13 hours ago, Kawaii_Desu said:

That should be a 2nd gen Ryzen because its a tweaked 2600 rebranded to 1600.

 

Also people don't seem to be understanding the restriction is nothing to do with how old the cpu is or how fast or slow it is, its all about hardware security features that the older chips are missing.

 

The older chips just don't support the required hardware memory integrity and virtualization based security systems.

You are absolutely correct...when I initially received the 'Does not meet system requirement' message, the first thing I thought was my CPU was too old because neither my 1600af or my wife's Ryzen 5 2400g are listed on the MS website. As far as I can tell, the issue has to do with enabling 'safeboot' and tpm 2.0. Any 2000 series and newer Ryzen CPU SHOULD work.

 

I won't say exactly how I got my system to run Win 11 because I don't want to get in trouble with LTT. However, there ARE workaround videos you can find on youtube and they aren't difficult to do. I just hope MS doesn't break my OS with updates since I'm using this 'hack'

 

 

MS has created mass hysteria with this update and I've read people are selling TPM chips at superinflated prices 

[linkboy]

24 minutes ago, steelo said:

You are absolutely correct...when I initially received the 'Does not meet system requirement' message, the first thing I thought was my CPU was too old because neither my 1600af or my wife's Ryzen 5 2400g are listed on the MS website. As far as I can tell, the issue has to do with enabling 'safeboot' and tpm 2.0. Any 2000 series and newer Ryzen CPU SHOULD work.

 

I won't say exactly how I got my system to run Win 11 because I don't want to get in trouble with LTT. However, there ARE workaround videos you can find on youtube and they aren't difficult to do. I just hope MS doesn't break my OS with updates since I'm using this 'hack'

 

 

MS has created mass hysteria with this update and I've read people are selling TPM chips at superinflated prices 

 

It's actually looking like the issue with older CPUs is related to Hypervisor- Protected Code Integrity or HVCI and MBEC.

 

In order for these to work, you need TPM chip.

 

MBEC wasn't added to Intel CPUs until the 7th gen chips and AMD didn't get it till Gen 2.

 

Older CPUs, like Skylake, need an emulated version of MBEC and that comes with a massive performance hit (sometimes up to 40%).

 

That's why Microsoft set the CPU requirements where they are. They can guarantee those CPUs have the proper support and there won't be a performance impact due to emulating MBEC.

 

 

[Craftyawesome]

9 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

HVCi

HVCi is a software/driver signing thing, it has no special hardware requirements (at least AFAIK).

I'm not sure which of us posted first, but I said in the other thread that MBEC is required for this to be performant. http://borec.ch/the-potential-performance-impact-of-device-guard-hvci/

This explains the modern requirements, but it still doesn't explain the inclusion of zen+ and the exclusion of Intel 7th gen.

 

Also, HVCI does require compatible drivers, but the security improvement is virtualizing the code integrity function away from the rest of windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/bringup/device-guard-and-credential-guard

[Sauron]

23 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Technically yes. The same way a shirt with a company logo should make the company pay you for advertisement.

In the end, they'll blame it on Windows.

And then what will they do, install Linux?

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, Craftyawesome said:

I'm not sure which of us posted first, but I said in the other thread that MBEC is required for this to be performant. http://borec.ch/the-potential-performance-impact-of-device-guard-hvci/

This explains the modern requirements, but it still doesn't explain the inclusion of zen+ and the exclusion of Intel 7th gen.

 

Also, HVCI does require compatible drivers, but the security improvement is virtualizing the code integrity function away from the rest of windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/bringup/device-guard-and-credential-guard

 

Unless MS knows something we don't with regards to some bug (errata) with the first implementation of MBEC which is the 7th gen, there's no reason to not include it in Windows 11 compatibility.

I've got a 6th gen (i7-6700) that won't mean minimum spec due to the aforementioned missing MBEC enhancement. But, I was able to enable TPP in BIOS to activate TPM 2.0 with PPI spec 1.3. So that last part at least meets the requirement.

[rodion.zissou]

I'm running the insider preview build on the following system from 2015.

 

 

[bcredeur97]

On 6/28/2021 at 1:16 PM, TVwazhere said:

Well 4790k, we had a good run. I'll love you always

INTEL 3960X here haha. It's still decent 

I mean it's been overclocked it's entire life what a great chip

[bcredeur97]

anyone know if Server 2022 will have the same requirements? 

[StDragon]

51 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

anyone know if Server 2022 will have the same requirements? 

Minimum:

• 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
• Compatible with x64 instruction set
• Supports NX and DEP
• Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW
• Supports Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)
  
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/windows-server-2022/get-started/system-requirements

Basically if you have an Intel CPU (starting with Nehalem) that supports SLAT (VT-x), you should be able to run it. So, say any CPU from 2008 on up. Or simply put, anything modern.

Edited June 29, 2021 by StDragon

[D13H4RD]

Reading that blog post honestly doesn't do much. 

 

TPM requirement was something that I understood. I still have yet to actually know for sure about their CPU requirements. 

 

Honestly, they can drop support for anything older than Haswell or whatever. Just that Kaby Lake is still pretty recent, so I don't really get why that generation has to be dropped. 

[RedRound2]

On 6/29/2021 at 4:31 PM, TudorF said:

@RedRound2

Might be that they went the Apple route and added a lot more UI animations and eye candy which need CPUs with higher IPC.

Except that they don't have the Quartz graphics library built as a special layer into the OS like Apple does, so they need to raise the bar of hardware requirements to ensure there will be a smooth OS experience.

Well they didn't. And nobody asked for it. Then the minimum requirements for older processor could've also been to have a graphic card

On 6/29/2021 at 5:41 PM, tikker said:

I did read your post, but ok let's dissect it in full then:

Your own words seem to be the best reponse: please go up and read again. The supposed features related to this are mentioned in the first quote of the topic and throughout this thread. They aren't supported or will need to be emulated on older hardware and that can apparently give a huge performance hit.

I don't know what else to say, you are literally saying here that your 3770k being faster than a low power efficiency-oriented chip is a reason they should support it.

Eh. Same thing can be said about Google, Apple, Steam etc. They were either first or the first ones to make something popular and survived, from which now they can enjoy brand recognition.

Okay, somehow in a hurry I didn't read the full quote but just the opinion and comments which didn't directly refer to the security features microsoft is claiming.

 

Now, here's my thoughts about that. Who asked for this? None of these security features I believe would stop someone from downloading a virus or malware from mail attachements and links. And these features are honestly mostly irrelevent to regular home users. These features could've easily be bundled into maybe a different version of windows and the old chips could've been eventually phased out after at least 10-15 years of support. Because my 3rd gen Intel computer is still as slick as ever and can do most of the tasks including heavy lifting for most people. So this kind of planned obsolesence in the name of security makes no sense. I don't need a faster desktop anytime soon and I don't want microsoft to force be to get a new one when it's perfectly usable. Performance reasons I get it. Specific Windows 11 features which somehow cannot run on older processors makes sense. But this, not really

 

And why did Microsoft mislead people in the first few days that any dual core 64-bit processor was the minimum requirements, when it's most certainly not? That's why I said, Microsoft is run by such dumb dumbs, who don't even understand properly on what they're doing. That's why such a straightforward case of communicating minimum and recommended specs have been an entire shitshow and they seem to coming up with reasons on the fly

 

Edit: Don't get me wrong. I would be fine if it meant that Windows 11 required boot SSD, a minimum of 8 GB RAM, DirectX 11+ graphics, etc - provided there was enhancements to the OS that needed those features to give the "full windows experience", but that isn't the case. Windows 11 can run on a potato, just that it has to be modern because of niche "security features" that's irrelevent to most people

[bcredeur97]

16 hours ago, StDragon said:

Minimum:

• 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
• Compatible with x64 instruction set
• Supports NX and DEP
• Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW
• Supports Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)
  
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/windows-server-2022/get-started/system-requirements

Basically if you have an Intel CPU (starting with Nehalem) that supports SLAT (VT-x), you should be able to run it. So, say any CPU from 2008 on up. Or simply put, anything modern.

I think these are more reasonable requirements. wow. surprised at the difference

[StDragon]

31 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

I think these are more reasonable requirements. wow. surprised at the difference

It does make sense from the perspective of running Server 2022 as a VM though. There's a lot of hypervisor host hardware running on older CPUs prior to 2018. And, the security mitigations being used in Windows 11 is more to protect the kernel from direct user interaction. With Windows Server, you're just hosting data or applications via port and not desktop session. The exception to that rule would be an RDS server.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, StDragon said:

It does make sense from the perspective of running Server 2022 as a VM though. There's a lot of hypervisor host hardware running on older CPUs prior to 2018. And, the security mitigations being used in Windows 11 is more to protect the kernel from direct user interaction. With Windows Server, you're just host data or applications via port and not desktop session. The exception to that rule would be an RDS server.

And there are hypervisor memory encryption and isolation options as well, though you generally want CPU support for those.