[German]Vendor Lansweeper has presented an analysis of the market one year after the release of Windows 11. This analysis examined whether the existing hardware equipment of the devices is compatible with Windows 11. The result doesn't really surprise me, but almost half of the existing hardware in the field is not compatible with Windows 11 because CPU, RAM or TPM and Secure Boot do not meet Microsoft's specifications.
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Windows 11 release on October 5, 2021.
Just over a year ago, on October 5, 2021, Windows 11 was released by Microsoft (see Windows 11 officially released). The strange hardware specifications (see Windows 11: Hardware requirements) already astonished users back then. Hardly any system appeared compatible with Windows 11 at the time of release.
After the announcement of Windows 11 by Microsoft, the company Lansweeper had conducted an investigation on the US market, how many existing systems in companies meet the compatibility requirements. This involved collecting data from an estimated 30 million Windows devices from 60,000 companies in relation to the minimum requirements.
Analysis of this data shows that, on average, only 44.4% of workstations are eligible for the automatic upgrade to Windows 11. Conversely, a good 55% of workstations are not suitable for an upgrade to Windows 11. One point is CPU compatibility, the other aspect concerns TPM 2.0 support.
2022 doesn't look much better
We're now a year on, and Lansweeper has once again taken this as an opportunity to highlight a new analysis on the compatibility of existing hardware with Windows 11. In the October 5, 2022 post Is Your Business Ready for Windows 11?, Lansweeper writes that the research showed that over 42% of workstations are not upgradeable to Windows 11.
Windows 11 compatibility, source: Lansweeper
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42.76% of CPUs in the existing systems are not certified for Windows 11. The minimum RAM size of 8 GBytes cannot be met by 7.15% of the systems. And 14.66% of systems lack support for TPM, with 20.77% of the systems reviewed failing the TMP test or not having TPM enabled. Just under 65% of the systems can do TMP.
For workstations with virtual machines, CPU compatibility is 55.7%. But only 67.1% of the machines have enough RAM for Windows 11. There is even worse news for TPM, because only 1.33% of all virtual workstations have TPM 2.0 enabled.
Windows 11 TPM compatibility, source: Lansweeper.
On physical servers, only 2.35% passing the TPM test. Conversely, if Microsoft develops a server OS in the future with requirements similar to those for Windows 11, about 97% of workstations will not be upgradable. For virtual servers, again, there are almost no TPM-enabled servers.
Lansweeper says this is not a big surprise, as TPM was never required for Windows. Although TPM passthrough (vTPM) exists to provide a TPM to virtual machines, it's rarely used. That means, Lansweeper said, that most VM workstations will have to be modified to get a vTPM.
Only after these restrictions are removed can Windows 11 be upgraded. The percentage of devices meeting CPU and TPM requirements is up about 12%. RAM expansion is also up slightly by 1.8%. Lansweeper comments: If this growth continues, theoretically all devices should be compatible with Windows 11 by 2026.
A small problem on the side: The support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. There could be joy there. So far, Windows 11 has been accepted cautiously by users. Lansweeper data focused on Windows 11 adoption found, according to the company, that only 2.61% of users have made the jump to Windows 11. That represents a 1.17% increase since April 2022.
Windows share, source: Lansweeper
Currently, Windows 10 (81.87%) is by far the most popular operating system. At least there is a consolation point for Microsoft, as Windows 11 has finally overtaken Windows XP (1.27%), which was dropped from support in 2014. But Windows 11 is clearly behind Windows 7, which has also fallen out of support for end users (3.38%), in terms of user popularity.
Lansweeper's data regarding OS distribution between Windows versions differs from that published by other companies and is likely based on Lansweeper's own data.
More details, including the rate of adoption of Windows 11 among consumers and in the corporate environment can be found in the Lansweeper article. However, looking at the list of Windows 11 problems (see links below), users would do well to stick with existing Windows versions or look for alternatives.
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