Is Win11 rejecting older CPUs a sales strategy?

Question

Is Microsoft rejecting older CPUs a sales strategy or genuinely related to concerns over performance/cpu security?I have a decent iMac I can't update as Apple have killed support for the cpu. Now I have Microsoft rejecting my i5 6th gen cpu.Is blacklisting cpus becoming a new sales strategy?

dr_kiszonka · Accepted Answer

Personally, I am disappointed that my i7-7700K is not good enough for Win 11 because I really wanted to use WSL 2 with Linux GUI support.
However, I can think of at least two reasons for not supporting older CPUs.
1) MSF may want to please their partners (Dell, Lenovo, etc.) by boosting their sales. I don't know how valid it is now given the current chip shortage, though.
2) For the longest time, MSF supported legacy hardware, which IFAIK pretty severely held back Windows development. Dropping this requirement may help make Windows a more modern and more competitive OS.
On the bright side, Win 10 will still be getting feature updates and thanks to its age likely has fewer functional bugs and security issues.

zenull · Answer

I think they want to get rid from older hardware thus making the OS more light without need to include a lot of old drivers stuff. So maybe it's a good sign. You can always use Ubuntu with your old hardware.