Windows 11 24H2 Instruction Requirement Affects Older/Incompatible CPUs

[Luke357]

What boggles me the most... those masochists who yearn to install Windows 11 on those tablet-like hybrids which come with Intel toy-like CPUs and 2GB Ram.

I feel called out lol. On a different site I made a post about installing Win11 on my Surface 3 with an Intel Atom and 2GB of RAM. It's not as bad as you'd think with the right tweaks.

 

[chrcoluk]

Feels a bit mental for people to be still using such old hardware, cant use a VM if dont have a spare machine for it?

 

[ThrashZone]

Feels a bit mental for people to be still using such old hardware, cant use a VM if dont have a spare machine for it?

Hi,
Maybe $ priority is a bit different than yourself and the others not understanding why someone would use older hardware

Personally I disable a lot of ms new features so win-10-11-12.. I can literally run it on a potato lol
But then again that is part of the fun showing people these os's can be run on a potato.

 

[efikkan]

Well, if this is a problem for someone, then just stick with Windows 11 without this update then.

But for anyone running stuff older than Haswell, later versions of Windows is far too slow (at least unless you tweak it). Linux might be a better option then.

Expecting a new OS to run on >14 year old CPUs would be like expecting Windows XP to run on a 386…

I got to ask, those running such old systems, what kind of GPUs are you using? Nvidia only offers Windows 11 support back to the Geforce 600 series(Kepler) and AMD the Radeon 400 series (Polaris).


But it is a question that I've been pondering a lot lately; where do people think it's fair to cut support backwards when it comes to (new) software? (both games and desktop software in general).
I personally think requiring minimum Haswell and a "DirectX 12 class" GPU for games is fair today, but I would like to hear other's opinions.

To get some perspective, do recent editions of Mint, Ubuntu and other popular Linux distros install and run on C2D systems? And no, compiling from source is not what I mean.

To add to what was said earlier;
They still do run on anything x86-64 with two cores and ~2-4GB of RAM. (Fedora actually offers a low-RAM option during install.) I think most systems older than Nehalem and Phenom II would be having too little RAM to be doing something useful. Like a typical Athlon 64 X2 at the time had 1-2 GB, good luck running Chrome with that.

But what's more interesting is that several Linux distributions are moving to offer packages compiled with a higher level of ISA support (optional though), as most of them today are complied at x86-64/SSE3 ISA level (with only select packages requiring more).

AMD, Intel, compilers and distributions have introduced microarchitecture levels of x86-64.
x86-64-v3 ("Haswell") is the level distributions will start to offer, and as can be seen in various benchmarks, there is quite a bit of "free" performance to be gained from having the entire system compiled with this. If Microsoft did a similar thing, I would expect comparable results.

But I doubt either Linux or Windows will require x86-64-v3 anytime soon, as Intel has been "stupid enough" to offer Pentium and Celerons up to Comet Lake without AVX2 support, so x86-64-v2 will likely be the minimum for a long time.

The reason why MacOS and especially Linux are theoretically more secure is simply from the fact that the user base is infinitely smaller and there is less incentive to write malware for.

This is completely wrong;
1) Mac OS was more plagued with viruses than Windows back in the 90s, despite minuscule market share. Then they switched to a BSD based kernel and the problem went away over night.
2) Security comes from design, not obscurity. Linux and (most) Unix based systems have proper security built into the file system, user privileges, etc.
3) By exposure and potential impact, the most attractive target today is by far Linux, as the vast majority of Internet servers and infrastructure runs on it, as well as all Android phones.

 

[Dr. Dro]

To add to what was said earlier;
They still do run on anything x86-64 with two cores and ~2-4GB of RAM. (Fedora actually offers a low-RAM option during install.) I think most systems older than Nehalem and Phenom II would be having too little RAM to be doing something useful. Like a typical Athlon 64 X2 at the time had 1-2 GB, good luck running Chrome with that.

But what's more interesting is that several Linux distributions are moving to offer packages compiled with a higher level of ISA support (optional though), as most of them today are complied at x86-64/SSE3 ISA level (with only select packages requiring more).

AMD, Intel, compilers and distributions have introduced microarchitecture levels of x86-64.
x86-64-v3 ("Haswell") is the level distributions will start to offer, and as can be seen in various benchmarks, there is quite a bit of "free" performance to be gained from having the entire system compiled with this. If Microsoft did a similar thing, I would expect comparable results.

But I doubt either Linux or Windows will require x86-64-v3 anytime soon, as Intel has been "stupid enough" to offer Pentium and Celerons up to Comet Lake without AVX2 support, so x86-64-v2 will likely be the minimum for a long time.

Running Fedora 39 server on my Q9505 just great. Have even a Minecraft server loaded onto it. 8 GB RAM though. As far as the ISA, it's been completely transparent, including through the upgrade process, I was never prompted or warned about any optimization or potential incompatibility.

 

[efikkan]

Running Fedora 39 server on my Q9505 just great. Have even a Minecraft server loaded onto it. 8 GB RAM though.

I was implying a desktop powerful enough to be "useful", since I assumed that was what Wirko was talking about, and I'm very aware that server versions can run on much less.
But for clarity, I should have been more specific.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I was implying a desktop powerful enough to be "useful", since I assumed that was what Wirko was talking about, and I'm very aware that server versions can run on much less.
But for clarity, I should have been more specific.

I guess it'd make sense that an advanced DE would make use of more advanced instruction sets, but at the same time I'm fairly sure both Cinnamon and KDE Plasma can run on a Core 2 just fine. Never really tried, I suppose.

 

[trparky]

Linux and (most) Unix based systems have proper security built into the file system, user privileges, etc.

NTFS security can do everything that Linux file system security can, you just have to know how to deploy proper file and folder permissions like any operating system.

 

[efikkan]

I guess it'd make sense that an advanced DE would make use of more advanced instruction sets, but at the same time I'm fairly sure both Cinnamon and KDE Plasma can run on a Core 2 just fine. Never really tried, I suppose.

Most of the desktop environments for Linux are much lighter than Windows, especially Win 10/11. And even for Gnome, users have the option to install the "flashback" package, which is "Gnome 2.x" like without all the nonsense (I run this on all of my machines, even newer ones).

But whether the system is usable comes down to what the user will do. If a user is mainly doing "office work", then LibreOffice is incredibly lightweight compared to MS Office, and should run fine on your old Core 2 Duo machine. The larger challenges are web browsing and videos (like YouTube). Both of these will work, but will be noticeably slow and probably will have to drop down to lower codecs for videos.

One of the big advantages of having software compiled for x86-64-v3 is multimedia performance. Most productive applications already use these features (or offers versions/plugins which do). If you glance at the overview of tiers of x86 support, you'll notice that there is no separate tier for AVX(1) (introduced with Sandy Bridge), and there is a good reason for this, as AVX(1) was comparatively a "small" upgrade over SSE4, with only partial 256-bit support. Sandy Bridge CPUs didn't have 256-bit vector width either, just double-pumped 128-bit, so the potential was limited. AVX2 (introduced with Haswell) is vastly more versatile, offers full 256-bit support and many more operations. But just as important and often overlooked, it also included support for FMA3 (originally developed by AMD), which is hugely beneficial for multimedia, rendering, and much more. For these reasons, Haswell and the lightly upgraded architecture Skylake, will remain remarkably relevant even today. Even some games have began to use AVX2/FMA3.

I'm still using some older machines too, like this post is written on my "secondary machine", an old Sandy-Bridge-E i7-3930K, which is beginning to show its age. Handling of web pages is getting slower compared to newer machines.
I also have my old Phenom II X4 940 sitting in a box, which I'm considering building into a complete machine to play some older games, but I never have the time.

 

[chrcoluk]

Hi,
Maybe $ priority is a bit different than yourself and the others not understanding why someone would use older hardware

Personally I disable a lot of ms new features so win-10-11-12.. I can literally run it on a potato lol
But then again that is part of the fun showing people these os's can be run on a potato.

I am not a wealthy person and use old hardware for stuff, but from the C2D era, that is quite extreme, hence the surprise from myself.

I do still have my i5 750 sitting proud on my self, I was usign it prior to replacing with an 2600X on my 2nd rig so it served me all the way through to Zen 1+.

 

[ThrashZone]

I am not a wealthy person and use old hardware for stuff, but from the C2D era, that is quite extreme, hence the surprise from myself.

I do still have my i5 750 sitting proud on my self, I was usign it prior to replacing with an 2600X on my 2nd rig so it served me all the way through to Zen 1+.

Hi,
Yeah I just chunked in a dumpster a c2d laptop from 2009 hehe
I had win-10 32 bit on it though.
Just bought a new just my second laptop recently.

 

[pf100]

If you don't want to buy new hardware you can instead use that same money to get a Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 lisence and have support until 2032. Normal LTSC has support until 2027, but that is clearly too soon to give up on a working Core 2 Quad computer. Too bad Windows 11 LTSC will be based on that same 24H2 that doens't work.

Apparently very few people know how good IoT (LTSC) is. You can tell them about support until 2032 and it won't really register because they don't know what you're talking about. Almost zero bloatware and there is also a script to add the store to IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021. I see a lot of people here saying that old cpu's like core 2's and phenom II's are too slow for windows 10 or 11. No they're not. Not for normal everyday use they're not. They instead might have missing instruction sets that'll keep you from running certain things. It's not because of how fast they are, unless you need something more towards the cutting edge of performance.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Apparently very few people know how good IoT (LTSC) is. You can tell them about support until 2032 and it won't really register because they don't know what you're talking about. Almost zero bloatware and there is also a script to add the store to IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021. I see a lot of people here saying that old cpu's like core 2's and phenom II's are too slow for windows 10 or 11. No they're not. Not for normal everyday use they're not. They instead might have missing instruction sets that'll keep you from running certain things. It's not because of how fast they are, unless you need something more towards the cutting edge of performance.

Because this is utter nonsense that's spewed on forums by people who have paranoia over "bloatware" and "spyware". There's no "support" until 2032 here. They only provide security updates until then. There will be no feature updates (which is what you're trying to avoid in all fairness), but it also won't carry over any future support for hardware and drivers. This is still OK as Windows 10 is still actively supported as long as you're on a 19041-19045 build, but once the latest generation of hardware drops it dead, IoT LTSC will share the fate of ALL other editions of Windows 10. It is merely an edition, not an operating system unto itself. Just like POSReady 2009 was still the 8 year old XP and after 2014, shared the same fate of regular XP - it just received security updates until 2019, at a point which it was actually 18 rather than 10 years old.

 

[sHeY-1ns4n17y2024]

Who in the year 2024 would ran Windows 11 on core 2 duos/quads and Athlon 64 systems?

who wouldn't?

i live in asia, you know the majority like almost/nearly everyone doesn't care for "aaa" titles. specifically regionally here in sea, its an esports haven. with dota2/valorant and maybe some cs being played by everyone. thus, for the most part a core2(quad) is really all most people need.

i have a rig as a core2 quad
q6700, gigabyte g41m-combo, 2x4gb valid.x86.fr/qqehtv

will upgrade to 11 soon haha even if it is not 24h2

 

[sHeY-1ns4n17y2024]

Most of the desktop environments for Linux are much lighter than Windows, especially Win 10/11. And even for Gnome, users have the option to install the "flashback" package, which is "Gnome 2.x" like without all the nonsense (I run this on all of my machines, even newer ones).

But whether the system is usable comes down to what the user will do. If a user is mainly doing "office work", then LibreOffice is incredibly lightweight compared to MS Office, and should run fine on your old Core 2 Duo machine. The larger challenges are web browsing and videos (like YouTube). Both of these will work, but will be noticeably slow and probably will have to drop down to lower codecs for videos.

One of the big advantages of having software compiled for x86-64-v3 is multimedia performance. Most productive applications already use these features (or offers versions/plugins which do). If you glance at the overview of tiers of x86 support, you'll notice that there is no separate tier for AVX(1) (introduced with Sandy Bridge), and there is a good reason for this, as AVX(1) was comparatively a "small" upgrade over SSE4, with only partial 256-bit support. Sandy Bridge CPUs didn't have 256-bit vector width either, just double-pumped 128-bit, so the potential was limited. AVX2 (introduced with Haswell) is vastly more versatile, offers full 256-bit support and many more operations. But just as important and often overlooked, it also included support for FMA3 (originally developed by AMD), which is hugely beneficial for multimedia, rendering, and much more. For these reasons, Haswell and the lightly upgraded architecture Skylake, will remain remarkably relevant even today. Even some games have began to use AVX2/FMA3.

I'm still using some older machines too, like this post is written on my "secondary machine", an old Sandy-Bridge-E i7-3930K, which is beginning to show its age. Handling of web pages is getting slower compared to newer machines.
I also have my old Phenom II X4 940 sitting in a box, which I'm considering building into a complete machine to play some older games, but I never have the time.

what games/apps use avx2/fma3 to the point not having them means you cannot run the app or game?

 

[pf100]

Because this is utter nonsense that's spewed on forums by people who have paranoia over "bloatware" and "spyware". There's no "support" until 2032 here. They only provide security updates until then. There will be no feature updates (which is what you're trying to avoid in all fairness), but it also won't carry over any future support for hardware and drivers. This is still OK as Windows 10 is still actively supported as long as you're on a 19041-19045 build, but once the latest generation of hardware drops it dead, IoT LTSC will share the fate of ALL other editions of Windows 10. It is merely an edition, not an operating system unto itself. Just like POSReady 2009 was still the 8 year old XP and after 2014, shared the same fate of regular XP - it just received security updates until 2019, at a point which it was actually 18 rather than 10 years old.

It's far from nonsense. You have to know first what it is you want and where IoT is a good fit and where it's not. It doesn't have any unnecessary crap which is perfect for an HTPC I have with an arc a380 that is perfect for handling any video decoding and encoding needs that I'll run across in my lifetime as long as no new codecs become a standard. I only have to do security updates and nothing else and it doesn't need any feature updates, ever. I have installed the microsoft store to this IoT install. There aren't 20 unnecessary unwanted preinstalled apps plastered all over the start menu. I have a gaming pc that runs standard windows 10 enterprise that I do want to have feature updates. I have a thinkpad T430 that I installed LTSB 2016 on in 2016 and I don't play games on it and it will never need a feature update, and I will update that to an IoT version around 2026. I know what I need and I use the best OS for the job in spite of people such as yourself creating drama about it.

 

[Dr. Dro]

It's far from nonsense. You have to know first what it is you want and where IoT is a good fit and where it's not. It doesn't have any unnecessary crap which is perfect for an HTPC I have with an arc a380 that is perfect for handling any video decoding and encoding needs that I'll run across in my lifetime as long as no new codecs become a standard. I only have to do security updates and nothing else and it doesn't need any feature updates, ever. I have installed the microsoft store to this IoT install. There aren't 20 unnecessary unwanted preinstalled apps plastered all over the start menu. I have a gaming pc that runs standard windows 10 enterprise that I do want to have feature updates. I have a thinkpad T430 that I installed LTSC 2016 on in 2016 and I don't play games on it and it will never need a feature update, and I will update that to an IoT version around 2026. I know what I need and I use the best OS for the job in spite of people such as yourself creating drama about it.

I'm not creating any drama, i'm just pointing out the obvious. It's a delusion to think these niche, specialized editions of Windows are actually any different from the rest, they've never been, not once in any point in the history of Windows. We can agree on the main "Home and Pro" versions of Windows having more fluff than necessary, but you also don't need an utterly stripped, barebones version just to feel like you're in control, which is what it's all about.

Basically, it's never a good fit for a desktop computer which is why it's a thin client edition meant for IOT devices. It's a pointless obsession, like I said. Unless you're using very low spec, purpose-built devices, its only real purpose is to serve for that embedded computing niche.

 

[AleXXX666]

It can be run with a Core2Quad or a 4-6 core Phenom just fine, IF an SSD is installed. Think schools for example, still using pretty old systems where they would love to upgrade their OS from Win 7 for example to Win 11 to offer their students a more current environment. Of course Win 10 works fine on such old systems, but in a year from now browsers will probably stop offering updates.

"browsers will probably stop offering updates"

wow, I have just tried Vista & 7 in VirtualBox for fun. Think what? Some Chrome version gets dumped right from OFFICIAL site, yeah it cries "unsAppoTed OS", but it WORKS. Yeah in Vista it was a challenge due to some old certs and I've had error you all know "wrong clock" (but time was correct...), but in 7 still works perfectly, so Win 10 will be usable with browsers for good few years within what GOOD schools WILL refresh their machines! Only idiots make students & workers SUFFER on DYNO hardware!

 

[Dr. Dro]

"browsers will probably stop offering updates"

wow, I have just tried Vista & 7 in VirtualBox for fun. Think what? Some Chrome version gets dumped right from OFFICIAL site, yeah it cries "unsAppoTed OS", but it WORKS. Yeah in Vista it was a challenge due to some old certs and I've had error you all know "wrong clock" (but time was correct...), but in 7 still works perfectly, so Win 10 will be usable with browsers for good few years within what GOOD schools WILL refresh their machines! Only idiots make students & workers SUFFER on DYNO hardware!

That's because the chrome website will detect your OS through the browser user agent and download the newest version compatible with your operating system instead. Like, if you visit it on a computer that's running Windows 7, it'll download Chrome 109 instead. Windows 7 is also affected by the outdated security certificates if it hasn't been updated to support latest SHA model.

There's a fork of Chrome 122 that's been backported to Windows XP+, if one must truly insist. This fork is probably the best thing you'll get on an outdated OS.

GitHub - win32ss/supermium: Chromium fork for Windows XP/2003 and up

Chromium fork for Windows XP/2003 and up. Contribute to win32ss/supermium development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[pf100]

I'm not creating any drama, i'm just pointing out the obvious. It's a delusion to think these niche, specialized editions of Windows are actually any different from the rest, they've never been, not once in any point in the history of Windows. We can agree on the main "Home and Pro" versions of Windows having more fluff than necessary, but you also don't need an utterly stripped, barebones version just to feel like you're in control, which is what it's all about.

Basically, it's never a good fit for a desktop computer which is why it's a thin client edition meant for IOT devices. It's a pointless obsession, like I said. Unless you're using very low spec, purpose-built devices, its only real purpose is to serve for that embedded computing niche.

IoT is a perfect fit for the HTPC I have connected to my TV and for my laptop but not my gaming pc. An embedded computer is just a regular computer that doesn't get feature updates. If you'll never need feature updates than IoT is what you want. If you want feature updates then you want the regular versions. You're hung up on "embedded" like it's somehow not a computer anymore. I get it, you don't like people or computers that don't need feature updates. Why are you so angry about this?

 

[Dr. Dro]

IoT is a perfect fit for the HTPC I have connected to my TV and for my laptop but not my gaming pc. An embedded computer is just a regular computer that doesn't get feature updates. If you'll never need feature updates than IoT is what you want. If you want feature updates then you want the regular versions. You're hung up on "embedded" like it's somehow not a computer anymore. I get it, you don't like people or computers that don't need feature updates. Why are you so angry about this?

I hadn't realized I was angry or hung up on people, you do you brother. What i'm saying is that it's generally bad advice to encourage people to use these niche systems which were never intended for the use case. IoT is more of your smart fridge or dishwasher. Not an HTPC.

 

[Onasi]

@Dr. Dro
I never liked the “I want absolute control over my OS” argument when it is then followed by “so I will use this weird edition of Windows”. I feel it’s a bit missing the point. If you actually want full control, you don’t f**k around, you go and compile your own Linux distro with exactly what you need and put it onto a secure, fully monitored and controlled network. That’s how this thing goes. Trying to use “10 weird hacks” or going to niche versions of what is, at the end of the day, still a closed-source, corporate developed consumer OS is just avoiding the pothole while driving at 250 kph into a wall.

 

[pf100]

I hadn't realized I was angry or hung up on people, you do you brother. What i'm saying is that it's generally bad advice to encourage people to use these niche systems which were never intended for the use case. IoT is more of your smart fridge or dishwasher. Not an HTPC.

IoT is not a smart fridge or a dishwasher. You probably got these ideas from microsoft who say it's for ATM's or whatever but the reality is that IoT is normal windows enterprise without the store (that can be manually installed) or feature updates. You don't ever need feature updates for an HTPC no matter what you say. If it weren't for security issues and lack of graphics card support you could use windows XP for an HTPC and it would do everything you need. You also never need feature updates for a laptop that you never play games on where the only thing you do with it is use a web browser. You can say what you want, and you obviously will, but there are lots of use cases where feature updates are never needed. Learn those use cases. The truth is I don't think you understand what IoT actually is even after I've tried to explain it to you. I'm only replying so that other people reading this know what it is and don't believe your misunderstanding about what IoT is. I'm done here.

 

[Luke357]

IoT is a perfect fit for the HTPC I have connected to my TV and for my laptop but not my gaming pc. An embedded computer is just a regular computer that doesn't get feature updates. If you'll never need feature updates than IoT is what you want. If you want feature updates then you want the regular versions. You're hung up on "embedded" like it's somehow not a computer anymore. I get it, you don't like people or computers that don't need feature updates. Why are you so angry about this?

While I don't personally use IoT Windows (I have considered it I am just too lazy to find a download) it is basically the perfect operating system for HTPC and secondary machine usage (I personally use Tiny11). It is lightweight, low power (which is important for an HTPC or laptop that will be on all the time) and zero interruption. It may be designed for a fridge or a router but an HTPC, much like a fridge only has one or two uses; none of those uses require new features (media playback and optionally media server). Just because something isn't exactly defined as a use case in Microsoft's book doesn't mean it won't work.

 

[Deadcode01]

Hi,
Yeah thinking MS has been taking notes of to many leather jacket man commercials saying just buy rtx lol
In MS world that means new disposable hardware that likely won't last 2-3 years because it's made so cheap but price sure doesn't reflect it's poor construction one bit.

These old chips are still around because they were made better than some newer stuff is and the old saying is, If it ain't broke, don't fix it :doh:
Can also be said, If a system still works why replace it.

TPM no piracy scans are malicious software removal tools job

If we followed your logic we'd still be driving cars with carburetors cause they, "just work"