In a nutshell: As Microsoft prepares to end free security updates for Windows 10 in October, a significant challenge looms for charities that refurbish and distribute older computers to those in need. With an estimated 240 million PCs unable to meet the stringent hardware requirements for Windows 11, these organizations face a difficult decision: provide potentially insecure Windows 10 systems, send them to e-waste recyclers, or explore alternative operating systems like Linux.
Microsoft’s requirements for Windows 11 include a 1GHz or faster CPU with at least two cores, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, Secure Boot capability, and TPM 2.0 compatibility. However, the supported Intel CPU list only goes back to 8th Gen chips, introduced in 2017, while the AMD list includes Ryzen 2000 series and above.
What if the SSD and everything else are 9 years old? Is that worth risking data loss over?
With the age of those computers you might even be looking at a HDD. Those should definitely be replaced, SSDs, it depends.
In any case a new 128G SDD is on the order of 15 bucks, well worth the investment even for an age-old system (unless you have a bit more extra cash because the GB/buck optimum is in the 0.5-2T range).
If it’s that valuable, you should have backups anyway.
And chances are it’s all cloud work that they’re doing on the computers.