The early days of Windows 11 and its {hardware} necessities have been merely a multitude. According to a brand new potential discovery, the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 is perhaps a little bit less complicated — older PCs merely received’t boot.

And by outdated PCs, we imply outdated PCs. A Twitter consumer claims that he has found a tough cease on PCs courting again to the final decade, based mostly on a CPU instruction that’s now required.

The instruction in query is POPCNT, or inhabitants depend. Why Microsoft’s Windows requires this instruction isn’t identified.

What we do know, nevertheless, is that POPCNT debuted 15 years in the past in 2008 as part of the Nehalem architecture, although it additionally appeared in modern AMD CPUs of the time. Within Intel’s Core processors, the instruction was commercialized throughout the second-generation Core chip, known as Sandy Bridge, which launched in 2011. Intel is delivery its 14th-gen Core chips this 12 months. Even when you don’t have the newest {hardware}, you seemingly have a PC that’s inside vary.

If you don’t, nevertheless, the implications are easy: It merely received’t boot, in line with the findings. (We’ve requested Microsoft for remark, however the firm hasn’t responded by press time.) Windows 11 24H2, which apparently received’t be referred to as Windows 12, is because of launch this fall.

When Windows 11 launched, the business weathered a collection of successive studies on whether or not or not Windows 11 would run on your hardware. Now, the reply might be a lot clearer. But likelihood is your PC virtually definitely will work.