Windows 11 - Does Your Organization Need to Upgrade or Refresh?

With the announcement of Windows 11, Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS), a lot of attention has been focused on the new advanced features it offers, as well as consolidating functions and improving the user experience.

With any major OS release, attention should also be placed on compatibility, and whether organizations should “rip and replace” or whether they can upgrade their existing devices.

In this article, we delve into the key considerations and what to look out for. But first, we look at the system requirements needed to upgrade. As with any minimum specifications, it is wise to exceed these in order to obtain a smooth and seamless user experience.

TPM 2.0

Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, was perhaps an unknown term prior to the Windows 11 announcement. But this is mandatory in order to use Windows 11.

TPM itself is a cryptoprocessor that secures a computer on a hardware level, preventing the risk of attack by using an integrated cryptographic key. This then works with other systems and applications within your PC. As it is hardware based-it is considered more secure than using software encryption alone.

What this means is that those without TPM 2.0 won’t be able to upgrade to Windows 11, unless (for desktops) you purchase and install a TPM 2.0 module.

To find out if your device(s) has TPM 2.0, search for “Windows Security” from the start menu, select “Device Security” then select “Security processor details.” Be sure to check that “Specification Version” is 2.0, as previous versions will not be compatible.

SSD

For SSDs, there has been great excitement around DirectStorage. But this is solely a benefit to running PC games. As such, the only enterprise-related requirements are to have at least 64GB and will support both SATA and NVMe based SSDs. Again, given that the Windows 11 OS will likely exceed 50GB alone, ensuring you have sufficient storage capacity and go above and beyond minimum requirements is key.

However, the wider adoption of NVMe-based drives may well be the catalyst for applications to utilize the speeds available with NVMe. As such, combined with a roll-out of memory upgrades, increasing the speed and capacity of your device’s storage can offer an opportunity to increase performance, in a cost-effective manner.