In its announcement of Windows 11 on Thursday, Microsoft had said that a security chip, such as the TPM 2.0 chip, would be required to run the operating system on a PC. In an email to CRN on Friday, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that “TPM 2.0 is a minimum requirement Windows 11 will not install without it.” The spokesperson also noted that TPM 2.0 is a “an industry standard, not just something Microsoft follows.” TPM 2.0 was released in 2014, suggesting that PCs made prior to that year may be incompatible with Windows 11. “This article has been updated to correct the guidance around the TPM requirements for Windows 11,” Microsoft says on the documentation page. Now, Microsoft says the compatibility requirement for Windows 11 is, in fact, a TPM 2.0 chip.

In the updated documentation, Microsoft has removed the reference to a “hard floor” for Windows 11 that would’ve allowed PCs with TPM 1.2 to still install the new OS. Microsoft has updated its documentation around the minimum Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security requirements for installing Windows 11, saying now that PCs will be required to have a TPM 2.0 chip in order to run the operating system.

Windows 11 tpm requirement