In a nutshell: As Microsoft prepares to end free security updates for Windows 10 in October, a significant challenge looms for charities that refurbish and distribute older computers to those in need. With an estimated 240 million PCs unable to meet the stringent hardware requirements for Windows 11, these organizations face a difficult decision: provide potentially insecure Windows 10 systems, send them to e-waste recyclers, or explore alternative operating systems like Linux.
Microsoft’s requirements for Windows 11 include a 1GHz or faster CPU with at least two cores, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, Secure Boot capability, and TPM 2.0 compatibility. However, the supported Intel CPU list only goes back to 8th Gen chips, introduced in 2017, while the AMD list includes Ryzen 2000 series and above.
This means many relatively recent and powerful computers are ineligible for the upgrade, despite having ample RAM and storage.
“Deploying Windows 10 at this time is a bad idea,” Chester Wisniewski, director and global field CISO for Sophos, told Tom’s Hardware.”The writing is on the wall. Microsoft has made the internal decision to obsolete this equipment, so I guess they just don’t want more people to use Windows.”
Wisniewski notes that Windows 10 and Windows 11 share a largely common codebase, meaning vulnerabilities patched in one can often be exploited in the other. On recent Patch Tuesdays, dozens of vulnerabilities were addressed, with some already being exploited by criminals before fixes were available.
Source: techspot.com
