Leaked system requirements that Microsoft set for PCs that want to upgrade to Windows 12

A few months ago, a leaked report unexpectedly revealed Microsoft's plans to return to the cycle of providing a major version of Windows every three years, meaning that Windows 12 could be released in 1 year, next 2 years. Although there is no official confirmation from Microsoft, this scenario is completely feasible in the context of Windows being increasingly under intense competitive pressure from Linux and Mac.

According to rumors from some reputable sources, Windows 12 will be internally codenamed "Next Valley", and is expected to launch next year. Currently, information about this new version of Windows has not been revealed, but it is said to be in the early stages of technical completion.

In addition to the name and release date, another aspect that is sure to attract a lot of attention is the system requirements for Windows 12. The system requirements for Windows 11 are considered quite strict as Microsoft considers many models. CPUs that are only a few years old are incompatible, simply because they don't support certain features the company deems essential to the Windows experience.

 

A series of recent rumors suggest that Intel's 14th Gen Meteor Lake-S desktop processors will launch with full support for Windows 12 as soon as it ships. However, based on the evidence we have so far, this is highly unlikely as the expected release dates for the Meteor Lake and Windows chips don't seem to coincide. Furthermore, there are hardly any detailed specifications for Meteor Lake-S at the moment, which suggests that the processor requirements may still be incomplete.

Windows CEO Panos Panay explained that next-generation Windows 11 and Windows 12 will be a hybrid of AI-cloud-based experiences, and that Microsoft is slowly making some progress towards that. there. In terms of security, the company is also removing legacy components such as MSDT, as well as VBScript, which have been exploited in the past.

Regarding some other requirements like Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Deskmodder site claims everything will be similar in Windows 11, ie TPM 2.0. Interestingly, Microsoft just rolled out SHA-3 support in its recent Build Insider build. The report also suggests that the Pluton coprocessor, which made its debut with Ryzen 6000 mobile CPUs, may not be a popular claim. Meanwhile, the minimum RAM requirement can be increased to 8GB.

To summarize, part of the system requirements for Next Valley editions (Windows 12) could be:

1. Supported processors (may not be decided yet)
2. TPM 2.0 (Pluton can be optional)
3. RAM 8GB

While there's no problem with the minimum amount of storage required (it's 64GB on Windows 11), it doesn't rule out the possibility that Microsoft could provide an option to install ReFS. In fact, the company seems to be making a lot of progress as they recently updated the ReFS version. A rumor once suggested that Microsoft might update the system requirements for Windows 11 and force the SSD to boot. While that doesn't actually happen, the software giant could completely start implementing this idea with Windows 12 (and that will indeed be a good thing as SSD prices continue to drop).