Microsoft announced in June that the new operating system can only be used on systems that have a modern processor, the eighth generation of Intel chips and smaller. These Coffee Lake chips were put on the market at the end of 2017. Windows 11 supports AMD chips from the 2018 Ryzen 2000 series.

Microsoft says the tech company is now dropping this requirement the edge: Users who manually download the new operating system will be able to install it on older computers. They only need a 64-bit 1 GHz processor with more than one core, as well as 4 GB of memory and 64 GB of storage.

Microsoft previously hinted that the requirements constitute a “soft low end”. At the time, the company said that users who tried to install Windows 11 would receive a warning.

demands lowered

If you try to download Windows 11 from Windows 10, you’ll still get a message that the chip is too old for that, according to Microsoft. But the company will not stop manual download via .iso file.

This is a stressful inflection that few users might consider, but it means that many computers can still use the new operating system. In addition, Microsoft is also slightly lowering the requirements: Intel Core X and Xeon W chips will also work with the new operating system.

Other chips, like AMD’s Zen 1 series, are still out.

Required to ensure the operation of the system

According to Microsoft, the requirements are essential for system security, and to ensure that drivers and other system software work properly under Windows 11. Systems that don’t meet the chip’s requirements are 52 percent more likely to crash.

Microsoft plans to support Windows 10 at least until October 14, 2025. An update to this version of the operating system will follow later this year.