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Windows 11 doesn't support Intel CPUs older than 8th gens. Linux is no longer an alternative, it's a lifeline for many old yet very capable machines.

What is Microsoft trying to do by ending Windows 10 support?

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I believe it does, but only from a clean install, rather than an in-place upgrade; I ran into this a few years ago.

By default the official unmodified Windows 11 ISO enforces CPU, RAM, and TPM/Secure Boot checks. You can bypass these by customizing the installer, configuring some things at install runtime, installing on one machine and moving it over, etc and it may work but the resulting install is not officially supported unless the machine meets the requirements described under https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica.... Some ISO-to-USB tools like Rufus can make doing this as easy as a checkbox.

I've run many machines this way without issue yet, but it's not officially supported. I'm hoping Microsoft will really just make "Windows 12" or something if they ever decide to make these true hard requirements to load at all instead of just be supported.

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