W11 Blog 004 | Using the right hardware

Ok, so let’s start by tipping the hat back to W11 Blog 002, where we looked at the significance of the Processor, in allowing you to upgrade to Windows 11.

Since that article, we have a couple of methods for upgrading to Windows 11 on older computers, even when they don’t the minimum requirements for Windows 11.

This is also the problem.

Microsoft’s position is that if you run Windows 11 on “unsupported hardware” then you may not receive security updates, driver updates and you simply won’t be supported.

Having danced around the options to upgrade one of our office computers, which didn’t meet the Processor requirements, I was going to “fudge it”, but with Microsoft’s position ringing in my ears, I decided against it. The number one reason is the potential lack of security updates. We all need to keep our computers secure, using patches that are released weekly from the likes of Microsoft. This is a good thing to do in general terms, more significantly for ourselves, we need to lead by example and we need to ensure we’re always working in a way that keeps us compliant with Cyber Essentials.

So, having procrastinated over this since way before Christmas (2021), here we are in mid-January (2022) and having had a spare ten minutes yesterday, I went ahead and purchased a new computer for the office which will be fully supported and compatible with Windows 11.

My plan is to make this my daily driver computer when I’m at the office, as it will both allow me to spend many hours using Windows 11, and it will allow me to check and test in the real world that all of the software we use, will definitely work before we roll out Windows 11 across the business.

I’m sure the like of Office 365 and Anti-Virus software will work without hitch, but for us, it will be more what we use to help us provide IT Support to our customers which will be the main focus for testing.

Again, just to stress, whilst you should be thinking about Windows 11 to future proof yourself, at this moment in time there is still no mad rush. Windows 10 is still fully supported until 2025.

When the new computer lands at Lucid Towers, we’ll get it all set up and operational. Once it’s in, and live, I’ll then return with future Windows 11 blogs around problems I’ve encountered (hopefully none), and what I really like about the latest and greatest version of Windows.

Gavin Moorhouse is the owner of Lucid Computer Solutions, an IT Support and Windows 11 focused business in Redditch, Worcestershire. Contact us at hello@lucidcomputersolutions.co.uk