The Windows 11 TPM Scam...
Microsoft requires computers to support TPM 2 to install Windows 11 and claims its vital for security and is prepared to sentence some 400 million PC's to death. This is unconscionable!
There is no reason that Microsoft cannot support computers with earlier TPM versions that most PC's do support. In fact, many owners purchased their current computer only a few years ago. Some manufactures only fitted TPM 2 to their computers around 2023, and as such should remain O.S supported for 10 years. (Microsoft policy is to provide version support for 10 years.) They should therefore continue support for Windows 10 for up to another 5 years. (If you purchased a PC since 2020 and it doesn't have TPM2, Microsoft should support it until 2030 with Windows 10 or provide a Windows 11 upgrade.)
Experts have advised that TPM 1 is still sufficiently secure and the enhancements that TPM 2 offers are not essential for security at present. Microsoft could easily allow computers with TPM 1 onto Windows 11 with no less security, perhaps with warnings and reduced features than currently available on Windows 11.
Why then are they being so stubborn?
TPM 2 allows Microsoft to have much greater control of your PC by embedding boot keys that they own, forcing the creation of a Microsoft account, and among other things can prevent installing a different system. Some users have had it remove their dual boot operating system.
For full details read the article by Stacy Higgenbothem to Microsoft on these issues. (Link to PDF available on the site below.)
Good News (for some)
Some owners have discovered that their non Windows 11 compatible computers have a software version of TPM and that it can be upgraded to TPM 2 with a simple BIOS update from the manufacturer. Perhaps ask Chat-GPT if your motherboard or model can support TPM 2. Unfortunately this TPM 2 path may now be software with reduced performance.
Many others, from individuals to corporations, are successfully moving to alternatives. Some to Mac's and others to Linux. In fact, many PC manufactures are now offering their machines with Linux installed or downgraded to Windows 10. The main reasons are; the price of Windows licenses, support costs and returns, which statistics show are three times higher for windows than Linux.
And its easy to trial most Linux Distro's. Most offer downloads which can be saved to a USB drive in a boot-able format. These are usually ISO images which must be saved to the USB using a free software utility such as Rufus. Plenty of info on Google about how to do this. One then boots from the USB drive. Sometimes this requires changes to the PC to force this, although most machines offer a menu to select the boot device with some function key when first powered on. This might be the hardest part of the whole process!
The beauty of this mode, while a bit slow loading files compared to the main drive, its fully usable with a Web browser, Email client, and Office software ready to go. You will even find access to your windows files and can open them - usually with Libre Office. And, if you like what you find, there is usually an Icon to install Linux already on the desktop. I wouldn't do this without having an independent backup of all your documents first. It should be possible to either create a dual boot setup or overwrite Windows, but there have been reports of dual booted Windows 11 removing this again.
Because many individual users use the web browser for everything, Linux can do everything they need. In fact this is exactly what a Chromebook PC is, but without the other applications.
A major advantage of Linux is the available free software and the ease of installing it. Its all under a single builtin applications menu with click to install, no searching the web with the risk of downloading malware.