“Do You Need a New Computer?”

By Scott Hamilton

For those of you who don’t follow technology news closely, you might have missed something very important, especially if you use Microsoft Windows for your business. Microsoft has announced the end-of-support for the ever so popular Windows 10 operating system. This means that they will no longer release security patches, bug fixes or drivers for newer devices on Windows 10. Much like the mess created in 2010 when Windows 98 went end-of-life, there will be several impacts to your business and personal computing by the change.

First and most important is that you are entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 11, which you should attempt before the end-of-life for Windows 10 that is coming in October 2025. The reason I say this is that Windows 11 requires a hardware component called a trusted platform module (TPM), which provides extra security to the computer against certain types of security risks. Windows 11 requires a version 2 TPM which was not released until 2014, so if your computer is older than 2014, you will not be able to upgrade to Windows 11 and need to strongly consider the purchase of a newer computer. It is also highly possible that even newer computers than 2014 do not have a TPM installed.

There are a couple of reasons for a system not to have a TPM module. The first is that it was manufactured for use outside of the United States trade agreements. The TPM contains cryptographic technology that has limited export regions, so systems designed for outside the export region will not have a TPM. The second is that the TPM was a specialized feature for high-security situations up until a few years ago, so only higher end computer models included the component.

I know what you are thinking, as I have the same thoughts – what if I don’t want to buy a new computer, but still want to run Windows 11? Can I add a TPM to my computer, or bypass the requirement? Up until the most recent release of Windows 11, it was still possible to bypass the TPM requirement, but Microsoft has effectively removed that option so there is no way to run Windows 11 without a TPM. The second piece of bad news is that a TPM, in order to be considered a security device, cannot be added, removed or replaced on a computer, so the only real use for your old computer is to either take the chance on getting a virus by continuing to run Windows 10 out of support, or install one of the many free Linux based operating systems on your old computer. Myself, I opted for installing Linux on the older computer and gave it a brand new life. However, this won’t work for many of you because of software requirements for business software, banking software, or other Windows -only utilities that you need on a daily basis.

The second major point is that sometimes a computer will report that it is incompatible with Windows 11 because of not having a TPM, when it has one that was disabled in the computer’s settings. There is a utility that runs on all computers called BIOS which controls which components on a computer that the processor can access. It was found early on that Windows 10 did not behave very well with the TPM enabled on some of these older systems, so it was a fairly common practice to disable the TPM in the BIOS settings to improve computer performance. So if your computer is newer than 2014 and still reports that it is not compatible with Windows 11, you might want to look on your computer manufacturer’s website for instructions regarding enabling the TPM, as it might just be there and turned off. The last thing we want is to spend unnecessary money on a new computer for a feature we already have.

In conclusion, I wanted to make everyone aware that you might have to consider a new computer purchase this year, especially if you use it for online banking, bill pay, or shopping, as the risk is too high to utilize unsupported software, especially at the operating system level. So take some time this week and check your computer’s health and Windows 11 compatibility. Microsoft provides a free tool to do the check at this link http://alturl.com/n8axx, or you can just search for “Windows 11 compatibility test.” Until next week, stay safe and learn something new.

Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@**********rd.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.