Windows 11 24H2 will refuse to start if your PC’s processor is too old… but really too old!

The next major Windows 11 update will make the OS incompatible with PCs older than 15 years. A history of missing instructions on old AMD and Intel processors.

Remember, when Windows 11 was released, hardware requirements that were, to say the least, painful were the talk of the town. TPM 2.0 actually required having a recent processor.

Imagine that Microsoft is preparing to do it again with the deployment of the next major update of the operating system. Note, the constraint this time seems to concern much older CPUs.

Impossible to boot without POPCNT

The double question of TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) and Secure Boot had quite spoiled the Windows 11 launch party: users could not install the OS even though their PC was powerful enough.

Even if certain configurations are still blocked, several tips have nevertheless made it possible to circumvent these “technical blockages”, but by studying build 25904 of Windows 11 24H2, Bob Pony – cited by XDA Developers – noticed a much more drastic limitation.

Indeed, with the next major Windows 11 update, the POPCNT instruction will be absolutely necessary. It will be used at different levels of the operating system (kernel, USB drivers, etc.), which should make any circumvention impossible.

An instruction that has been present for a while

Problem is, this instruction is not present on all the processors that you can have in your PC because if IBM has used it since 1961, it has only been active since 2007 at AMD (Athlon K10) and 2008 at Intel ( Nehalem).

Yes, you read correctly 2007 at AMD and 2008 at Intel. In other words, unless you have a processor in your PC older than these dates, you should have no problem running Windows 11 24H2 which was ultimately much more finicky on TPM 2.0.

All in all, this necessary POPCNT instruction should not bother many Windows users. Just know that when the 24H2 update arrives, it will be impossible to install it on your old 486 SX 25 with arithmetic coprocessor.

Source : XDA Developers