Microsoft is cracking down on unsupported Windows 11 installs

A support document showing users how to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs was deleted sometime in the past two months. Its disappearance, noticed by Neowin, echoes Microsoft’s recent “year of the Windows 11 PC refresh” rhetoric, encouraging (or forcing) users to buy new PCs that meet Windows 11 hardware requirements.

When Windows 11 launched in 2021, Microsoft announced that it was adding TPM 2.0 as a hardware requirement — a move that was met with plenty of resistance. To soften the blow, Microsoft also published a support document detailing how users could edit their registry key values to bypass the TPM 2.0 check.

It had always been laden with warnings, making it clear that users who used the workaround did so at their own risk, but now, by deleting the document, it appears that Microsoft doesn’t endorse the registry key trick at all anymore.

Meanwhile, the requirement itself is still controversial and with support for Windows 10 coming to an end this year, Microsoft had to clarify that this would not lead to any changes to the Windows 11 hardware criteria.

Once support ends, there will likely be a large number of people who will continue to use Windows 10 on older PCs. Without critical security updates, these machines will become vulnerable to viruses and malware, and unfortunately, this could lead to a much higher risk of older users falling victim to cybercrime.

If you still want to try the TPM 2.0 bypass trick, you can access the old support article with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It’s not clear whether the trick has been disabled or if Microsoft just wants to stop advertising it, but it’s worth a try.