Microsoft released a new Dev build of Windows 11 yesterday, and its updated changelog includes mandating the TPM 2.0 requirement for VMs soon.
Users with unsupported hardware for Windows 11 running it in VMs should make a point of it, but as it’s not mentioned in the Beta channel, they can relax for a while. TPM 2.0 is a mandatory hardware requirement for running Windows 11.
TPM 2.0 Requirement For Windows 11
As Microsoft considers security as one of the critical components in Windows 11, it made the requirement of TPM 2.0 must in users’ computers eligible to run the new OS.
A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a security component in system hardware to perform the encryption functions like device security, disk encryption, etc. Thus, it cannot be denied.
But enthusiasts with unsupported hardware are coming up with various ways to skip this requirement and forcing Windows 11 to run on limited hardware. One among them is using Virtual Machines (VMs).
Virtual Machines create an internal environment within your computer to run other supported OS in them. To date, Windows users can run the Windows 11 test builds in VMs without any issues. It includes bypassing the TPM 2.0 requirement too.
But, this may change soon, or not at all. As per the updated blog of changes brought in newly released Windows 11 build 22458, Microsoft noted that VMs running Windows 11 should have TPM 2.0 support for continuing so.
And this is mentioned in the Dev channel only as of now. Dev channel is meant for testing new features and often contains more bugs than the Beta channel, which is almost ready for a stable release.
As this requirement isn’t mentioned in the Beta build of Windows 11 yet, initial users are good to go when it’s officially released on October 5th this year. But as mentioned in the Dev channel, users may see it as mandated or be scrapped off if Microsoft thinks the other way.
