Andrew Cunningham
When it introduced Home windows 11 and its strict new hardware requirements, Microsoft additionally launched a PC Well being Examine instrument that will analyze your {hardware} and let you know whether or not your pc might improve to Home windows 11. The issue is that the app would not let you know why your pc failed the take a look at, main some folks with comparatively new PCs to imagine that they would not be capable of run the OS with out {hardware} upgrades.
A new version of the PC Health Check app, now accessible by way of this official Microsoft link to folks with out Home windows Insider accounts, fixes that downside. In our testing, it is nonetheless fairly dangerous at guessing the approximate age of the PC that it is working on, but it surely at the very least presents extra detailed data when it is telling you that you just will not be capable of improve to a brand new OS.
The brand new model of the Well being Examine app makes suggestions in case your PC has simply fixable compatibility issues, like if there is a firmware TPM module that simply isn’t enabled, if Safe Boot is turned off, or should you want a RAM or disk area improve. However for extra severe issues, like a processor that is not on certainly one of Microsoft’s compatibility lists, your solely choices are to improve to a supported processor (not all the time an choice however potential for some AMD Ryzen desktops specifically), exchange the pc, proceed working Home windows 10, or run an “unsupported” Windows 11 install that may or may not receive updates going ahead.
Pre-built PCs with supported processors typically have already enabled the safety features Home windows 11 is asking for, since Microsoft makes the large PC corporations adhere to extra strict {hardware} and configuration pointers earlier than it would allow them to promote Home windows PCs. The larger downside is custom-built PCs, which frequently have these safety features turned off by default and do not all the time make it clear the best way to flip them on. One resolution could be to put in a more moderen BIOS replace—lots of the motherboard makers are changing their default settings in recent BIOS versions to help Home windows 11 out of the field.
Home windows 11 begins rolling out to supported PCs on October 5.
Itemizing picture by Microsoft
