No New PC Needed: Windows 11 Runs on a 15-Year-Old Intel Pentium 4 Chip

Microsoft has been mainly telling consumers that Windows 11 is meant for newer PCs. However, an internet user has uploaded a video that shows the OS can actually run on a 15-year-old Pentium 4 chip from Intel.

Last week, Twitter user “Carlos S.M.” posted screenshots of his Pentium 4-powered PC running Windows 11. He then followed that up with a video and benchmarks to verify that his machine was running the one-core Pentium chip with only 4GB of DDR2 RAM.

To install the OS onto the system, Carlos S.M. said he used a Windows 10 PE Installer, which can be used to deploy or repair Windows via a USB drive. “Windows 11 is installed in MBR (Master Boot Record)/Legacy Boot mode, no EFI emulation involved,” he added.

Of course, the OS runs a bit slow on the Pentium 4 chip. Nevertheless, it shows Windows 11 can easily run on decade-old hardware, even though Microsoft is selectively rolling out the OS to newer PCs.

According to NotebookCheck.net, the demonstration makes a “mockery” of the system requirements for Windows 11, which have been angering consumers ever since the OS was first revealed back in June.

Officially, Microsoft has said a PC must possess a newer security feature called TPM 2.0 in order to run Windows 11. To underscore the point, the company released a list of eligible CPUs, and the processors only go as far back as late 2017. However, the company has also quietly acknowledged that older PCs without TPM 2.0 can run Windows 11 — so long as the user decides to manually install the OS onto their machine. Microsoft itself has released instructions on how to bypass the TPM 2.0 requirement. Doing so will also stop a Windows 11 installation from checking what CPU family the computer is running.

If you do install Windows 11 on an unsupported PC, Microsoft warns your machine may not be eligible to receive automatic updates. But apparently Carlos S.M. has had no problems receiving updates for his own Pentium-powered PC. “Windows update still works on this machine and even installed the Patch Tuesday,” Carlos S.M. said in a follow-up tweet.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
Xbox 360 FTW
The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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