Andrew Cunningham
When it announced Windows 11 and its strict new hardware requirements, Microsoft also released a PC Health Check tool that would analyze your hardware and tell you if your computer could upgrade to Windows 11. The problem is, the app wouldn’t tell you. Why your computer failed the test, leading some people with relatively new PCs to believe they wouldn’t be able to run the operating system without hardware upgrades.
A new version of the PC Health Check app, now available at this official Microsoft link for those without Windows Insider accounts, solves that problem. In our testing, it’s still pretty bad at guessing the approximate age of the PC it’s running on, but at least it gives more detailed information when it tells you you can’t upgrade to a new OS.
The new version of the Health Check app makes recommendations if your PC has easy-to-resolve compatibility issues, such as if there’s a firmware TPM module that just isn’t enabled, if Secure Boot is disabled, or if you’re running out of RAM or disk space. needs an upgrade . But for more serious issues, like a processor not on any of Microsoft’s compatibility lists, your only options are to upgrade to a supported processor (not always an option, but possible for some AMD Ryzen desktops in particular), the computer, continue to use Windows 10 or perform an “unsupported” Windows 11 installation that may or may not receive updates in the future.
Prebuilt PCs with supported processors generally already have the security features that Windows 11 demands as Microsoft makes sure that the major PC companies adhere to stricter hardware and configuration guidelines before they can sell Windows PCs. The bigger problem is custom PCs, which often have these security features disabled by default and don’t always explain how to enable them. One solution could be to install a newer BIOS update – many of the motherboard manufacturers change their default settings in recent BIOS versions to support Windows 11 right out of the box.
Windows 11 will begin rolling out to supported PCs on October 5.
List image by Microsoft