You may know that I am a fan of the Security Now! podcast, and something mentioned there last week is well worth sharing.
Microsoft’s justification for launching Windows 11, instead of incrementally upgrading Windows 10 as it had said, was mainly built around needing a more secure platform, and hence needing to use TPM 2.0 which Windows 10 could not support.
However, detailed analysis seems to indicate that TPM 2.0 doesn’t do anything more than TPM 1.2 which is in Windows 10. You can read the full analysis in the Security Now! show notes at https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-860-Notes.pdf.
Why does any of this matter? Well, if the technical reason for launching Windows 11, and forcing many users to upgrade their hardware, doesn’t stand up then we have to wonder what motivated Microsoft to take this step.
Let’s hope the confusion is sorted out by the time Windows 10 stops being supported, which is currently October 2025.