A whole load of PCs still don’t qualify for Windows 11
Businesses, bring your hardware up to speed or you might regret it later
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A significant proportion (43 percent) of all business devices are still unable to upgrade toWindows 11because of hardware requirements imposed byMicrosoft, according to newresearchpublished by IT management company Lansweeper.
TechRadar Propreviouslyreportedin March 2022 that many millions ofbusiness PCswere ineligible to upgrade toWindows 11, in part due to theirprocessorslackingTrusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0compatibility, a feature Windows 11 requires.
Lansweeper claims that the situation has eased since wecoveredits last report, with the percentage of devices clearing the CPU and TPM requirements rising by 12%. At this level of growth, all devices should be compatible with Windows 11 by 2026.
Windows 11 in the workplace
However, Lansweeper still found that only 57% of the devices tested had CPUs that met Microsoft’s requirements. More than a third (35%) ofworkstationstested were incompatible with TPM or had it disabled, whilevirtual machinesfared worse - with only 1% supporting or having TPM enabled.
Furthermore, the growth level of Windows-11 compatible devices that Lansweeper has seen still falls short of the end-of-life deadline forWindows 10: October 14, 2025. On this date, Windows 10 will stop receiving vital security and feature updates.
This is important, as 82% of all Windows devices are still running Windows 10. A steady growth rate for compatible devices isn’t guaranteed, and any devices still running the previous iteration of theoperating systemwill become increasingly vulnerable tomalwareandransomwareattacks.
This is a large part of why a great deal of cyberattacks targethealthcareandeducationalinstitutions. Organizations neglect to update operating systems, usually to preserve a software ordatabasesolution that “just works”, and so become easy targets for malicious threat actors who value their sensitive personal data.
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Check out our list of the best mobile workstations right now>Windows 11 is getting an update that IT admins will celebrate>Windows 11 now has much better protection against brute-force attacks
Only 3% of all Windows users currently use Windows 11. By comparison, 1% of users are still using the 21-year-old Windows XP, and so it’s fair to say that businesses are still unaware as to why they ought to invest in new hardware.
As much as it may seem counterproductive, especially in a recession, organizations are advised to update the hardware powering their business for long-term confidence in their security posture, and look to save money in other areas, such as theirsoftwaresolutions.
Luke Hughes holds the role of Staff Writer at TechRadar Pro, producing news, features and deals content across topics ranging from computing to cloud services, cybersecurity, data privacy and business software.
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