Microsoft makes ground in its war to stop Windows 11 running on old PCs

The latest build of Windows 11 has reduced the total number of CPUs that Microsoft's latest operating system can run.

According to reports, the latest version of Windows 11 will not boot on PCs that have a CPU that doesn't support the SSE4.2 instruction set, which is a way for Microsoft to reduce the number of ancient PCs using old hardware from running the latest Windows operating system. Notably, the SSE4.2 instruction set arrived in the first generation of Core i5 and i7 processors, which was more than 15 years ago.

Microsoft's Windows 11 hardware requirements list does reveal a long list of supported CPUs, but this move has made that list smaller. Why does Microsoft do this? There are several reasons, some hardware may have limited security capabilities that don't meet Microsoft's current security standards for its latest operating system, while another reason could be an architectural limitation of the microchip itself, as Windows 11 may require a more advanced architecture to precisely draw resources from.

Microsoft's goal is to push users to the latest version of the Windows operating system, with the company only recently announcing it was ending support for its currently most-popular operating system, Windows 10.

• Read more: Microsoft just made it easier to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11
• Read more: Microsoft kills support for most popular operating system, users now get full-screen ads
• Read more: Microsoft's goal behind killing support for its most popular operating system is working