One red cross, four different problems - and two of them are usually just settings. Before anyone talks you into a bypass or a new PC, split the Windows 11 check into its parts and find out which failure is real and which one is a switch in the BIOS that nobody ever turned on.
The PC Health Check app reduces your whole computer to one line: this PC cannot run Windows 11. That line hides four separate checks, and they are not equal. A missing TPM tick and an unsupported CPU sound identical in the summary and mean completely different things: one is often a five-minute BIOS visit, the other is a fact about your hardware that no setting can change. Always split the verdict before acting on it. Here is each check, what actually fails it, and the free tool reading that tells you the truth.
An example readout. Two of the three failures above are settings, not hardware - which is why the check must be read line by line, never as one verdict.
Open PC Health Check, click Check now, then open the full results list instead of stopping at the red banner. Note exactly which items are ticked and which are crossed. If you want a second opinion that names the failing part more bluntly, free checker utilities in the WhyNotWin11 class list every requirement on one screen. Either way, your goal is one sentence: which specific item failed? Everything below is organised by that answer.
Most CPUs from the last several years carry a firmware TPM built in - fTPM on AMD boards, PTT (Platform Trust Technology) on Intel boards. On machines assembled or imaged a while ago, that feature is frequently disabled in the BIOS, so Windows reports no TPM at all.
tpm.msc.The genuinely final version of this failure is a machine with only TPM 1.2 or no TPM at all - common on much older boards. That one is real.
Press Windows + R, run msinfo32, and read two lines: BIOS Mode and Secure Boot State. Secure Boot exists only when the PC boots in UEFI mode. If BIOS Mode says Legacy, the board is running a compatibility mode (CSM) and Secure Boot cannot be switched on until that mode is off. One warning that saves people real pain: a Windows disk partitioned in the old MBR style may not boot once Legacy mode is disabled, so treat a mode switch on your only PC as a planned job with a backup - not as a casual experiment while following a checklist.
The processor check is a list, not a measurement. Microsoft publishes supported CPU lists, and in broad terms the line falls around Intel 8th generation and newer and AMD Ryzen 2000 series and newer, with exceptions in both directions - so confirm your exact chip against the list rather than trusting the generation rule. If your CPU is off the list, there is no BIOS setting, driver or registry value that puts it on the list. This is the one failure that means what it says, and it is the failure that leads to the real decision: supported road, new hardware, or a bypass taken with its terms understood.
The remaining requirements - 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, a DirectX 12 capable graphics driver - are modest, and a PC healthy enough to run Windows 10 today passes them almost by default. If storage is the reported failure on a nearly full small drive, free space fixes the message but changes nothing about the bigger checks. Do not let a pass on these easy items convince you the PC is "basically supported" when the CPU line above says otherwise.
After any BIOS change, boot into Windows fully and run the health check once more. Two outcomes:
For PCs that genuinely fail, the video above shows the complete bypass install - after you have confirmed you actually need it.
▶️ Watch Full VideoEnable fTPM or PTT, save the BIOS settings, and boot fully into Windows once before re-checking. Then run tpm.msc and confirm it shows specification version 2.0. The health check can also take a little time to refresh its verdict after a hardware or firmware change.
It usually means the PC booted in Legacy or CSM mode, where Secure Boot does not exist. Switching to UEFI mode is the fix, but on a disk using the old MBR partition style that switch can stop Windows from booting - plan it with a backup, as its own job.
No. The supported processor list is a list, not a setting. Your real options are staying on Windows 10 with ESU security updates, replacing the hardware, or installing Windows 11 through a bypass while accepting that Microsoft does not support that install.