Windows 11 is approaching its third anniversary, and Microsoft is gearing up for the next major upgrade. Following the system requirement policy introduced in 2021, the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 release will discontinue support for PCs using certain older CPUs.
Microsoft has implemented a new “hard” compatibility block with Windows 11 Canary build 26058, requiring users to have a CPU with support for the POPCNT (population count) instruction to boot the OS. Another compatibility block has been identified in the latest Windows 11 preview build (26063), which introduces support for Wi-Fi 7 and officially requires proper support for SSE4.2 CPU instructions.
