It’s no secret that Windows 11 will have some special effects on enterprise PCs. But now, Riverbed, a network solutions research firm, found that more than 34% of enterprise devices are not ready to upgrade to Windows 11.
“While the advantages of Windows 11 are obvious, some of its device requirements make it challenging for users to upgrade. More than one-third of devices in use today cannot run Windows 11,” the data scientist noted.
Moreover, Windows 11 requires a PC with at least 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage space; UEFI secure boot must be enabled; the graphics card must be compatible with DirectX 12 or higher, with WDDM 2.0 drivers; and must include a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0.
Riverbed’s report states that 23 percent of systems are eligible for Windows 11 upgrades, but 12 percent are “obsolete and beyond repair.” In terms of hardware upgrades, Riverbed found that 21% of machines need to be upgraded or replaced (because of TPM 2.0), 15% need UEFI.
For the relatively easy part, Riverbed found that 19.45% of devices needed to upgrade storage, 11% needed to upgrade to TPM 2.0, and 8% needed to upgrade to UEFI.
In fact, Windows 11 usage in the enterprise is very low. On a graph comparing Windows 10 vs. Windows 11 by “hours of use” between June 2021 and January 2022, Windows 10 was basically distributed around 200 million hours, and Windows 11 didn’t leave the X-axis.
Right now, it’s hard to say whether Riverbed’s findings bode well or badly, but Microsoft will support Windows 10 until October 2025, and it’s likely that quite a few organizations will be procuring new hardware before then.
In fact, if you have been paying attention to the system requirements of Windows 11 and various problems reported by users, then this part of the data should not surprise you. After all, the main reason for the above figures is the problem of TPM 2.0.
Leaving aside corporate users, there are even many ordinary users who have expressed their dissatisfaction with Win11.
Of course, while these limitations and parts of Win11’s design (such as the Start menu) have been controversial in the Windows community, that hasn’t stopped it from continuing to climb, and there’s currently no force in the world that can hold it back.
