Windows 11 PC Health Check Now Explains Why Your PC Isn't Up To Spec

Divining whether your Windows 10 PC is eligible for a Windows 11 upgrade hasn't been a straightforward matter, at least not at first. Microsoft admitted to botching up the communication of the minimum system requirements and even had to pull out its tool that was supposed to make that easy. That PC Health Check app is finally available for everyone to use and, more importantly, now also explains what you need to do if your PC doesn't make the grade.

Now that the dust has settled, the minimum requirements for Windows 11 have become more or less straightforward. You need to have at least a dual-core 1GHz 64-bit CPU with at least 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. TPM 2.0 also needs to not only be present but also enabled to meet Windows 11's security requirements.

There are, however, still some corner cases that many Windows users might not have considered. That's where the hopefully final version of the PC Health Check app comes in, determining whether a PC makes the cut. If it doesn't, it will recommend actions to take to make the device Windows 11-worthy.

For most laptops and pre-built PCs made in the past two years or so, there should be very few problems in that regard. Custom-built PCs, on the other hand, might run into some issues with the security requirements. Even if a TPM 2.0 module is installed, it might not be enabled and requires fiddling with BIOS settings, presuming the option to do that is even available.

Those with older processors, unfortunately, have more work to do and potentially more expenses. They could, of course, stick to Windows 10 for the time being or even manually install Windows 11 if they really want to do so. The latter course, however, could result in no longer receiving even critical security updates and putting the user at even greater risk.