Microsoft's reasoning on CPU compatibility.

Haydon · Dec 29, 2021

mecanicogolf said:
Hello to all,
I have a question on the reasons why Microsoft has chosen the CPU cutoff's for compatibility on the Windows 11 installation. I understand the TMP and Secure Boot reasons (I have them both on my i5 CORE 7200U Kaby Lake-U/Y 14mm Technology) but I do not understand their reasons for this part of the cutoff point.
Is this a security reason? Speed? What does the "Generation" part have to do with it?
I have been running Win 11 on my HP ENVY for months now with absolutely nothing visual nor operational wise problems at all. Runs like a champ and a lot better and faster than Win 10 ever did.
I must be at the cutoff point with this early/mid 2017 laptop. Just barely a month or two, that's why I have Secure Boot and TMP on at the BIOS. Always was from the beginning when I bought it.
I am trying to broaden my knowledge on this point and just wondering if anyone could help me with my understanding on them subject.
I can't believe this machine has no problems at all with this CPU, or, at least, I nether find nor notice anything.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Anything incompatible with the almighty $ is labeled 'incompatible'

The-Hive · Dec 29, 2021

Bree said:
That does seem to be an exception to the norm. My unsupported System Two with its 1st gen i5 runs 11 as well as, if not better than it ran 10.

I think I will try it again now with a later build, the last one was a while ago

RFS · Dec 29, 2021

wordsworth said:
In reference to the article you posted, I noticed some time ago a difference between my compliant and non-compliant machines running Win 11. If you go into System Information the following is what you'll see under Virtualization based security:

View attachment 17134 View attachment 17135
The top image is from the 10th Gen Processor, the bottom image from the 6th Gen processor where Mode Based Execution Control is emulated rather than done in hardware. According to Microsoft this is one reason the 6th Gen may be less stable. I've not experienced any difference between the machines.

I believe there can be a significant performance issue if Virtualization-based security is emulated in firmware on older PCs, compared to those where it's provided by hardware (ie 8th gen Intel or later). I did some tests with the program here to generate prime numbers -

How fast can your comp find all the Prime numbers from 1 to 1,000,000?

With my 10th generation Intel it made no difference and the result was around 9.3 seconds either way. Tried it on the wife's PC which is a 7-year-old Intel G3450 which she only uses occasionally. I fitted a TPM 2.0 to make it compatible, but there's a big difference with this program depending on whether virtualization is enabled or not.

Disabled it runs in about 35s, but enable it and the result is 3m30s. Perhaps this program is an extreme case, but I think it's the reason MS will not support W11 on non-compliant PCs if there comes a time when Virtualization is required to be enabled.

I have kept an image of my wife's W10 (on a 64 Gb SSD) and I know what a new MB, processor and memory would cost if we decided to upgrade.

Bree · Dec 30, 2021

wordsworth said:
In reference to the article you posted, I noticed some time ago a difference between my compliant and non-compliant machines running Win 11. If you go into System Information the following is what you'll see under Virtualization based security....

....The top image is from the 10th Gen Processor, the bottom image from the 6th Gen processor where Mode Based Execution Control is emulated rather than done in hardware. According to Microsoft this is one reason the 6th Gen may be less stable....

Thank you for this, the performance hit with older processors is possibly one of the more sensible explanations for Microsoft's '8th gen or later' requirement.

But it's not just emulation that may be a problem, VBS also requires compatible drivers. Of the three machines in my specs below running W11, two compliant, one non-compliant, two of them showed this:

To find out why, go to Windows Security > Device security > Core isolation details and try turning on Memory Integrity. It will scan for compatible drivers and list those that are not compatible.

Windows Security - VBS incompatible drivers..png

The above is from my non-compliant System Two. As there are no compatible display drivers for its early Intel HD graphics that's the end of the story - no VBS. For my compatible System One (an Acer) the story was different. Its W10 OS had been migrated from an older Toshiba machine then upgraded to W11. Despite my best efforts to purge them a couple of OEM Toshiba drivers had slipped through and were still being loaded, though obviously found no hardware to use and remained inactive. Those, and that same WD SES Device were the culprits that prevented using VBS.

The OEM Toshiba drivers had no way to be uninstalled and required a manual 'search and destroy' to delete them from the system, necessarily done while Windows was offline so that their files were not in use. The WD SES Device was easy to uninstall, it was listed as a hidden device (ie. installed but not present) in Device Manager.

Device Manager - uninstall WD SES Device.png

So now both my compliant machines have VBS running. Thank you wordsworth for bringing this to my attention.

RFS · Dec 30, 2021

I also had to uninstall the WD drivers in order to be able to enable Core Isolation on both my compliant PCs. Seems they're only needed if you use the WD utilities. But next time you run Windows Update the drivers will re-appear but as optional updates. I have used Windows show/hide to prevent the updates going back on.

Another device I had a problem with is a Logitech Webcam whose drivers are similarly non-compliant. I only use the webcam for Skype and it turns the Windows default drivers for camera and microphone are fine. Once again I had to hide the Logitech drivers to prevent their re-installation as optional updates.

Wife's non-compliant PC also had an issue with the Intel Graphics. But it's a desktop and I had a spare Nvidia card whose drivers are compliant.

wordsworth · Dec 31, 2021

RFS said:
I believe there can be a significant performance issue if Virtualization-based security is emulated in firmware on older PCs, compared to those where it's provided by hardware (ie 8th gen Intel or later). I did some tests with the program here to generate prime numbers -

How fast can your comp find all the Prime numbers from 1 to 1,000,000?

With my 10th generation Intel it made no difference and the result was around 9.3 seconds either way. Tried it on the wife's PC which is a 7-year-old Intel G3450 which she only uses occasionally. I fitted a TPM 2.0 to make it compatible, but there's a big difference with this program depending on whether virtualization is enabled or not.

Disabled it runs in about 35s, but enable it and the result is 3m30s. Perhaps this program is an extreme case, but I think it's the reason MS will not support W11 on non-compliant PCs if there comes a time when Virtualization is required to be enabled.

I have kept an image of my wife's W10 (on a 64 Gb SSD) and I know what a new MB, processor and memory would cost if we decided to upgrade.

I should have been more specific when I said "I've not experienced any difference between the machines" meaning that I've not experienced any instability on the 6th Gen machine; and two caveats to that would be so far, and I don't game on the machine so perhaps that would introduce instability. Considerable performance differences such as the Prime numbers test you spoke of do exist, see below, and this is with Core isolation>Memory integrity enabled; although not that I notice in everyday use. Stressing the 6th Gen constantly may introduce stability issues but I do use this machine for my music server now with the 10th Gen being my work machine.

wordsworth · Dec 31, 2021

Bree said:
Thank you for this, the performance hit with older processors is possibly one of the more sensible explanations for Microsoft's '8th gen or later' requirement.

But it's not just emulation that may be a problem, VBS also requires compatible drivers. Of the three machines in my specs below running W11, two compliant, one non-compliant, two of them showed this:

View attachment 17218

To find out why, go to Windows Security > Device security > Core isolation details and try turning on Memory Integrity. It will scan for compatible drivers and list those that are not compatible.

View attachment 17219

The above is from my non-compliant System Two. As there are no compatible display drivers for its early Intel HD graphics that's the end of the story - no VBS. For my compatible System One (an Acer) the story was different. Its W10 OS had been migrated from an older Toshiba machine then upgraded to W11. Despite my best efforts to purge them a couple of OEM Toshiba drivers had slipped through and were still being loaded, though obviously found no hardware to use and remained inactive. Those, and that same WD SES Device were the culprits that prevented using VBS.

The OEM Toshiba drivers had no way to be uninstalled and required a manual 'search and destroy' to delete them from the system, necessarily done while Windows was offline so that their files were not in use. The WD SES Device was easy to uninstall, it was listed as a hidden device (ie. installed but not present) in Device Manager.

View attachment 17222

So now both my compliant machines have VBS running. Thank you wordsworth for bringing this to my attention.

I had the same problem on both machines that is getting the incompatible drivers resolved and managed to do so on both though I don't recall now which drivers were the problem except I think on the 6th Gen it was the Nvidia driver which thankfully Asus is still putting out drivers for the 1050 TI card.

Dru2 · Jan 4, 2022

wordsworth said:
In reference to the article you posted, I noticed some time ago a difference between my compliant and non-compliant machines running Win 11. If you go into System Information the following is what you'll see under Virtualization based security:

View attachment 17134 View attachment 17135
The top image is from the 10th Gen Processor, the bottom image from the 6th Gen processor where Mode Based Execution Control is emulated rather than done in hardware. According to Microsoft this is one reason the 6th Gen may be less stable. I've not experienced any difference between the machines.

Thanks for this info; between this and Bree's post #14, learned something. And yeah, I have some incompatible drivers as well, but they are well needed (for now).

Thanks.

Microsoft's reasoning on CPU compatibility.

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