If you’re running Windows 11 on an unsupported PC, we’ve got some bad news. Microsoft looks set to make your life a misery by adding a watermark and an annoying pop-up message that’ll keep reminding you that you’re using the operating system on hardware you’re not supposed to until you stop and (ideally, for the company) buy a new PC.
Windows 11 launched with some specific hardware recommendations, especially to do with Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0), a bit of hardware included in modern motherboards that supposedly makes the operating system more secure.
However, Microsoft’s insistence that PCs needed TPM 2.0 to run Windows 11 meant that many people found that their perfectly powerful and recent PCs and laptops, which could run Windows 10 without issue, weren’t able to run Windows 11.
Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go down too well with a lot of people, and since then there have been various ways of getting Windows 11 to run on unsupported hardware.
While these workarounds proved that there were plenty of unsupported PCs out there that could run Windows 11 perfectly fine, Microsoft was clearly unhappy about it, and now it’s going to further lengths to make using Windows 11 on unsupported hardware more of a chore.
As ZDNet reports, if a PC doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for Windows 11, but has the operating system installed anyway, then a watermark will be added to the desktop (in a similar way to how watermarks appear if you run Windows 10 or 11 without activating it), and a message will start appearing in the Settings app as well.
As well as those deliberate annoyances, Microsoft also warns that if you run Windows 11 on unsupported PCs you might not get essential updates – and damages to your device might not be covered by a warranty.
While you might wonder how much damage running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware will cause, the bigger concern is that you could miss out on a security update and subsequently fall victim to a virus.
Heavy-handed haranguing
Considering how keen Microsoft is to get people to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you might think that the company wouldn’t mind (or at least turn a blind eye to) people moving to Windows 11, even on unsupported hardware.
However, it seems the company is sticking to its guns, and doesn’t care if a PC can run Windows 11 – if it doesn’t support TPM 2.0, then it’s not coming in (to the ‘can officially run Windows 11’ club).
This insistence is an odd one. While it’s ostensibly about security, TPM is one of those things that few people outside of enterprise settings will notice or care about. If you’re already annoyed enough that your PC has been deemed unable to run Windows 11 to use a workaround to get the operating system running, having an ugly-looking watermark stamped on your desktop isn’t going to go down well – nor is it going to convince you to either return to Windows 10, or buy a new PC.
Those are the only two options available to you if your PC cannot run Windows 11, and while Microsoft does offer a way to go back to Windows 10, it feels like the company would much rather you just buy a new PC with Windows 11 pre-installed. That’s an expense not everyone can afford, and it can be particularly galling to be forced to do that if your device is perfectly able to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t have TPM 2.0.
However, while I have a lot of sympathy for people who are running Windows 11 on unsupported devices, the fact that Microsoft is warning that those users might miss out on updates means I can’t recommend continuing – if you miss out on a vital security update, you’ll be putting yourself and your device at risk.
Still, it leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, especially as these workarounds have proved that there are plenty of unsupported PCs that can run Windows 11 just fine if it wasn’t for Microsoft’s insistence on TPM 2.0.