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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

There's also a Microsoft provided tool: https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp

And the text list of what's compatible:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

The two that people are complaining about most are:

- Arbitrary requirement of 8th gen or better for Intel i3/5/7/9[1]. Which seems odd, given that some 2017 era Celerons are on the list.

- TPM 2.0 module

[1] Specific Intel CPUs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...

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According to Ars [1], it seems that every CPU that is on the supported processor list includes TPM. It's called iPPT on Intel and fTPM an AMD.

Most motherboards ship with it disabled in the BIOS so you have to find that setting (probably somewhere in the "advanced" settings) and change it.

They also warn that some OEM motherboards have it disabled in the BIOS but do not expose a setting to change it, so with those you might be out of luck if the OEM did not include hardware TPM.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/heres-what-youll-nee...

I have it turned "on" to something which is called "Discrete TPM" on my AMD but it seems that it's not good enough according to the tool.

"Discrete TPM" means you have a daughter board that you plug in to a physical TPM port on the motherboard (check your motherboard manual for where it is, and which kind is compatible). If that device is physically not actually there, then that BIOS option does nothing for you.

You should check and see if the "Firmware TPM"/"fTPM" option is available, because that one will work without the physical add-in card.

Ah got it.

Thank you. Yes indeed there is a Firmware option there.

> There's also a Microsoft provided tool: https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp

Doesn't work on Domain joined machines. It tells me to contact my IT department (which is me!) and doesn't show anything else.

Could it possibly be that they want to compile with support for a specific instruction set extension or depend on spectre/meltdown fixes? Though Wikipedia [0] only lists CNVi [1] as new feature.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake#Features

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNVi

I believe that app is currently checking the cpu against the list of compatability for OEMs which tends to be more strict though. So there's a chance an older cpu might work that the app says will not.

My guess is that 8th gen was picked since that's when quad core became standard across the product line, but that leaves out the earlier HQ series (such as the i5-7300HQ on my ThinkPad T470p) that are quad core. And of course the Celerons aren't either, so it doesn't make any sense.

TPM excludes Boot Camp, so no Intel Macs. I guess with the EOL date being 2025 and the ARM migration it probably wont matter by then though!

If you search around, there's a few implementations of a virtual TPM around. Vmware does it, Parallels also, and there are also some open source ones. I would guess someone might find a way to graft that into Boot Camp.

On my fairly new second gen Surface Go 2, GetPCHealthCheckApp says that my CPU isn't supported, despite it being an m3 that is explicitly on that list you linked to. The tool at github says everything is supported when I run it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

The Microsoft tool won't tell you why it doesn't work though. Says only: "While this PC doesn't meet the system requirements to run Windows 11, you'll keep getting Windows 10 updates".

The tool told me that it's indeed TPM. I didn't even know what it is and my PC is 2 months old ;)

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