The newer restriction you're talking about is the mandate of "POPCNT" instruction set in the microprocessor architecture. Microsoft, as always, thinks that it knows what's best for the end users. They have enforced this restriction owing this reason "No AI without POPCNT". It's a stupid artificial restriction that is unfortunately not bypass-able. But have a look -
It was introduced in the Intel processor lineup in 2008. The micro-architecture in question would be "
Nehalem" to be precise. Unless you've a processor that dates back to the times before Nehalem, eg. some ancient Core 2 Duo, you're still perfectly capable of running the newest Windows 11 builds.
As for AMD, they had added this instruction
before Intel. POPCNT was introduced to AMD processors in 2006-07 with its
Barcelona architecture.
All other restrictions can be easily bypassed using a diverse range of methods.
- Rufus:
https://www.makeuseof.com/rufus-bypass-tpm-secure-boot-requirements-windows-11/
- Ventoy: It bypasses everything by default since version 1.0.86:
https://www.ventoy.net/
- Or you can manually do that by editing Registry:
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement
Yep. The Intel CPUs before 2008. To be honest, machines that old should use Linux. But it's important to recognise that 2008 is 10 years older than 2018, the year Coffee Lake was released.
Microsoft tells us that Windows 11 can't run on Intel Processors older than Coffee Lake.
For AMD, Microsoft suggest that
not even the first generation of AMD Ryzen processors are capable of running Windows 11.
Further reading:
https://blogs.windows.com/windows-i...tem-requirements-and-the-pc-health-check-app/
You can bypass it even without booting to USB install. Just add a switch to setup.exe as instructed here.
https://www.neowin.net/news/windows...-cpu-can-be-bypassed-via-this-single-command/