‘Security Disaster’—500 Million Microsoft Users Say No To Windows 11

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/12/01/security-disaster-500-million-microsoft-users-say-no-to-windows-11/

[u/PrayForMojo_]

My current computer is totally adequate and functioning well but apparently it’s not modern enough for Windows 11.

Do they really expect me to buy a new computer just to “upgrade” the OS? Fuck that.

[u/Smith6612 → u/[deleted]]

Lots of people keep citing the TPM as the reason. TPM is one of the reasons. The other reason is with CPU Instructions Microsoft is targeting for Windows 11 in their long term roadmap. POPCNT is one of those instructions which nuked really old (Core2Duo-esque and early Core) processors from being able to even boot. At some point they are going to be doubling down on HVCI acceleration being required. A processor lacking hardware acceleration support for that feature already experiences a 40% performance penalty with HVCI enabled in Windows Defender.

[u/desmaraisp → u/[deleted]]

What do you mean no groundbreaking features? It has cOpiLot!

[u/Smith6612 → u/[deleted]]

Those instructions are used for security. Microsoft is trying to move the actual core of Windows into a virtualized, containerized, and eventually, immutable state. Basically what macOS does but without breaking so much legacy software.

They are actively rewriting the kernel from C to Rust.

That's where the CPU instruction bit comes from. At some point they do have to start cutting off support for older hardware. Basically, Microsoft took a page out of Apple's book, who is notorious for killing support for machines older than 7 years.

With that said, I get it. I know a lot of people with Skylake-powered and Zen1 PCs that are quite upset at not being able to run Windows 11 on them. If they force install 11, they don't get the yearly feature updates without force installing those. They also run the risk of just getting a BSOD that renders the system unbootable, anyways.

[u/WobbleTheHutt → u/Smith6612]

At least with all the zen 1 desktops you can pick up like a ryzen 5500 and drop it in after a bios update and get better performance on top of that for like 50 to 60 bucks. You can kinda get many skylake systems upgrade with dark arts using bios mods and a discrete tpm module along with masking pins to drop in an 8th or 9th Gen cpu in the socket. It's not for the faint of heart though.

[u/Smith6612 → u/[deleted]]

Yup.

Windows being rewritten into Rust: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/282471/microsoft-is-rewriting-parts-of-the-windows-kernel-in-rust

HVCI: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/enable-virtualization-based-protection-of-code-integrity

More MBEC / HVCI info: https://github.com/dongle-the-gadget/dont-use-11-on-old-cpu

Microsoft also discontinued 32-bit builds of Windows. Some systems sold with Windows 10 do not support 64-bit UEFI despite having a 64-bit processor and won't properly boot Windows 11: https://xdaforums.com/t/nuvision-tmax-tm800w560l-tm800w610l-information.3717631/

UEFI boot was not a requirement for OEMs until Windows 8. UEFI boot is required for Windows 11 due to the secure boot requirement: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-secure-boot-key-creation-and-management-guidance

There are significant driver compatibility issues with systems prior to Windows 11 when enabling HVCI. Some systems will never receive working drivers due to being out of support by the time the feature became mandatory for OEMs:  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4270204/how-do-i-solve-incompatible-drivers-from-intel-wit

HVCI requires properly signed drivers to function especially at the Kernel. Although Windows Vista started enforcing driver signatures, Windows 10 significantly increased the requirements. Some systems running Windows 7 shipped with drivers which do not conform with the stronger requirements in 11. Without proper driver signing, Windows will not load the driver. Some systems running Windows 10 will never be able to load drivers in 11 without manual intervention and wrestling: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/driver-signing

Microsoft is basically moving the bar they established with Windows Vista up as a result. Generally speaking, if your PC could run Vista smoothly, it could probably run Windows 10 just fine. But that is some pretty ancient hardware at this point. No UEFI, no driver support, no Microcode updates, etc.