bios on optiplex 960

Question

Abt 4 years ago I bought a refurbished optiplex 960 running windows 7. Abt 2 years ago I dual booted windows 10 on it. I would now like to also boot windows 11 on it. Windows 11 requires TPM and SECURE BOOT. I turned on the TPM in my bios, but there is no option for secure boot. When I go to Dell drivers It says windows 10 is not supported on my computer but it runs very well on it. my current bios is A06 they have an update to  A18 listed for my computer. If I update will it have secure boot on it and will my windows 10 still work.

JOcean · Answer

Your problem, as many others have found out, is that you need a Generation 8 or newer Intel CPU. At around 10-13 years old that would put your CPU at a much older generation. So it becomes neither a matter of Secure Boot or TPM.

bradthetechnut · Answer

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/6/25/22550376/microsoft-windows-11-tpm-chips-requirement-security

Capture+_2021-06-28-20-22-01.png

Also, you'll still be able to run Win10 if you update BIOS, but it won't change the Secure Boot option. You may be running in Legacy mode. But if you were able to switch to UEFI, and your drive was loaded in Legacy, your drive would come up as bootable device not found. Something to keep in mind if you wanted to transfer HDD'S/SSD's in the future.

Philip_Yip · Answer

There has been a backlash on the minimum system requirements. Microsoft have released some updated information on the minimum system requirements... As far as I can tell this applies to mainly systems that have 6th and 7th Generation Processors.

Microsoft have released the first Dev Insider Preview Build of Windows 11. It looks like they have a traffic light system with:

Green: Meeting Windows 11 Hardware Requirements. i.e. 8th Generation Intel Processors and newer.
Amber: Not Meeting Windows 11 Hardware Requirements but Meeting Minimum Requirements for the Windows Insider Program. Installation works on 6th and 7th Generation Intel Processors.
Red: Not Meeting Requirements for the Windows Insider Program. Likely the case for 5th Generation Intel Processors and earlier that don't have a TPM Version 2.0.

Preparing for Insider Preview Builds of Windows 11 | Windows Insider Block

The OptiPlex 960 is a really old machine now and is even older than a 1st generation processor. It does not have a UEFI BIOS and does not have Secure Boot. It is likely in the Red category "Not Meeting Requirements for the Windows Insider Program".

With these minimum system requirements in mind, the PC Health Check app was intended to help people check if their current Windows 10 PC could upgrade to Windows 11. Based on the feedback so far, we acknowledge that it was not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn’t meet upgrade requirements. We are temporarily removing the app so that our teams can address the feedback.

Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements | Windows Insider Blog

bradthetechnut · Answer

Good post @Philip_Yip.

Optiplex Desktops

bios on optiplex 960

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