Windows 11 may have system requirements that have caused controversy by excluding even relatively modern PCs, but the operating system can actually run on a computer with a 4-year-old single-core Intel Pentium 15 (Cedar Mill) processor.
This rather surprising feat was achieved by 'Carlos SM', who tweeted about it and then shared a video to show how the old system works, as discovered by PC Mag.
Windows 11 on Cedar Mill Pentium 4 Machine Specs: Intel Pentium 4,661 3,6 GHz ASUS P5Q4 GB DDR2 800 NVidia Geforce GT 710 120 GB SSD Installed with Windows 10 PE Installer pic.twitter.com/n5gTg9csKAO Oct 14, 2021
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As you can see, the full specifications of the PC include an Intel Pentium 4,661 processor (1 core, 2 threads) on an Asus P5Q (LGA 775) motherboard, with 4 GB of DDR2 RAM (at 800 MHz) and an Nvidia graphics card. GeForce GT 710 There is a 120GB SSD for storage (Carlos also provides CPU-Z system validation).
This hardware was good enough for Carlos to install Windows 11, using a Windows 10 PE installer and noting that "Windows 11 is installed in MBR/Legacy boot mode, there is no EFI emulation involved."
Carlos further notes that Windows Update is working fine on the PC and installed the recent Patch Tuesday cumulative update for Windows 11 without any issues. That said, unsurprisingly, Microsoft's operating system is sometimes slow and runs on this hardware configuration.
Analysis: New OS, Old Machines, But Not Without Risks
It's quite telling how well a low-power PC can get and run Windows 11, especially since the minimum system requirements call for a dual-core processor, not a single-core model as used here.
The big hurdle for many machines is the TPM 2.0 stipulation, which Microsoft implemented for security reasons (along with secure boot) and unsurprisingly, this venerable PC has none. However, as we have seen, and even wrote a guide on our own, it is possible to upgrade to Windows 11 on a non-TPM machine with workarounds that Microsoft has known about.
But even then, the software giant strongly warns against this, suggesting that it could lead to "device malfunction" or even "damage", and that you are not guaranteed to receive updates. Day (but as Carlos discovered, he can get them-for now).
However, it is obvious that this is a strange situation where it is possible to install Windows 11 on a PC with a single core processor that should not be supported by an unofficial method and yet it is not necessary. Official installation on a PC with a processor. of the Intel seventh generation range, it appeared only five years ago. Carlos also tweeted to point out that this Pentium processor isn't even the oldest that you can boot Windows 11 with.
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