Windows 11 rolls out to PC users - but not all of them
ABC News
The company said your PC will need a special processor known as a Trusted Platform Module, or "TPM," chip in order to run Windows 11.
Starting Tuesday, PC owners who run Windows 10 will be eligible to download Windows 11 for free. However, the ability to use Microsoft's latest operating system will largely depend on your computer's age, and what type of processor it uses.
When Microsoft first showed off Windows 11 over the summer, it also announced some restrictions on what types of PCs are eligible for the new operating system. The company said your PC will need a special processor known as a Trusted Platform Module, or "TPM," chip in order to run Windows 11.
"It's a little chip the size of your fingernail that lives on the motherboard, sometimes it's on the CPU," Digital Trends Managing Editor Nick Mokey told ABC Audio. "It's there for security purposes, there's a good reason Microsoft wants it."
Microsoft's Director of Enterprise and OS Security David Weston wrote in a June 25 blog post that the purpose of the company's TPM requirement is to "help protect encryption keys, user credentials, and other sensitive data behind a hardware barrier so that malware and attackers can’t access or tamper with that data."
