Windows 11 supports a variety of ARM processors from Qualcomm. as per The official documentation, you need a computer with a Snapdragon 850 processor inside or newer to run the current OS officially. However, customers with PCs powered by the Snapdragon 835, the original Windows on ARM chip from 2016, can bypass the hardware requirements and install Windows 11 at their own risk. Unfortunately, those days will soon be over.

Starting with Windows 11 version 24H2, Microsoft’s operating system requires ARM v8.1 to run. Trying to boot it from a device with an ARM v8.0 based processor causes system crashes. For reference, the 2016 Snapdragon 835 is a chip with Kryo 280 cores, the derivatives of ARM’s Cortex-A73 cores.

While Windows 11 never supported the Snapdragon 835 processor, it was possible (technically, it still is) to install the operating system on computers with this chip, just as you can run it on 7th-generation Intel Core or 1st-generation Ryzen processors. Because of this, many think Windows 11’s hardware requirements are arbitrary – a ploy to get customers to buy newer hardware. Microsoft denies these allegations and claims that the operating system does not support a large number of relatively capable chips for security reasons.

Now that Windows 11 24H2 is getting more features and requires newer instructions, customers have to deal with the fact that their old PCs are physically Unable to run the latest version of Windows 11.

The same will happen to older x86 processors without POPCNT and the SSE 4.2 instruction set. However, those still using computers with 16-year-old processors probably shouldn’t complain about Microsoft not supporting their outdated hardware. The Snapdragon 835, on the other hand, is a much more recent processor, so the change will likely make some users sad, although again, they were never supported in the first place.

The end of ARM v8.0 “support” also means the end of the road for enthusiasts still toying with old Lumias, such as the Lumia 950 XL. However, Surface Duo is safe as both generations have much more recent Snapdragon chips.