Microsoft Teases Windows 11 Support for 7th Gen Intel CPUs, First-Gen AMD Ryzen Chips

Last week, Microsoft angered PC users everywhere when it revealed that Windows 11 won’t officially support CPU processors from a mere four to five years ago.

But now the company is considering lowering the system requirements to include two earlier CPU generations: Intel’s “Kaby Lake” 7th-gen chips from 2016 and AMD’s Ryzen 1000 processors from mid-2017.

“As we release [the OS] to Windows Insiders and partner with our OEMs, we will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet our principles,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post on Monday.

Microsoft’s messaging around Windows 11’s system requirements has been a mess, in large part due to the company’s PC Health Check app, which you can run on a Windows 10 machine to learn whether it’ll be compatible with the next-generation OS.

Initially, the app had a notable flaw: It wouldn’t explain why a Windows 10 machine was ineligible for the Windows 11 upgrade. A day later, the app was updated to offer an explanation. But that only caused consumers everywhere to learn that the processors inside their relatively new PCs failed to meet the requirements for Windows 11. Others said the app was incorrectly flagging their Microsoft Surface hardware as incompatible with the OS.

In response, Microsoft said it’s temporarily pulling the PC Health Check app with the goal of fixing it. “Based on the feedback so far, we acknowledge that it (the app) was not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn’t meet upgrade requirements,” the company said. “We will get it back online in preparation for general availability this fall.”

:story: PC Magazine