W10 CPU Requirements not fully stated

Microsoft says the CPU requirement for W10 is:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster

Well, it seems that they are using the same CPU requirements for W10 that they have for W8.1. I attempted to install W10 RTM on a machine I use for testing and it immediately complained that it was not NX capable. In fact, if you look at the details when the error comes up it references W8.1. So it appears that you are basically going to need a 64 bit capable processor and I don't think that any of them are anywhere near 1Ghz. I guess that Pentium 4's and similar are basically dead unless you either remain on W7 or use Linux instead.

No. Pentium 4 works well with 10 on my system - see system specs - x86 Prescott from 2005 3.2 GHz. Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware - Page 3 - Windows 10 Forums

Windows 10 on old hardware (2007) - WinBeta - reboot.pro

Windows 10 Forums - Search Results

It will just about run on a 32-bit Celeron M 1.50 GHz, but I have not quite got the rest of the hardware to comply yet with the Windows 10 setup program which has some restrictions and probably bugs with CPU checking etc., as others have reported. Next to try is applying Install.wim directly to the volume I want it installed on.

There are two requirements for the CPU besides the speed. The first is NX Bit support, the second is CMPXCHG16 support. Most processors since about 2005 support both of these (with the exception that some AMD CPU's don't have the CMPXCHG16 support).

NX support, however, is often turned off by default in many BIOS's, so you may need to go into your bios and flip that on.

There does seem to be a bug where NX support is wrongly shown as lacking even when it's not on certain chipsets or cpu's, I don't know which ones, but there has been a lot of complaints about it.

Also, there is an Intel feature that automatically scales down the CPU when idle called Intel SpeedStep, and if this is enabled on some CPU's (I've most heard this on Core i7 4xxx CPU's) when installing it may report that your CPU isn't fast enough. You may need to disable this when installing, and re-enable after you've installed.

@tgm - As you can see from this page

ARK | Intel 4 Processor 550 supporting HT Technology (1M Cache, 3.40 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)

The P4 550 doesn't support NX.

Mystere said:

@tgm - As you can see from this page

ARK | Intel 4 Processor 550 supporting HT Technology (1M Cache, 3.40 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)

The P4 550 doesn't support NX.

I knew that the CPU didn't support NX. If you look back to the beginning you will see that Mico$oft does NOT say in their System Requirements that the CPU have anything more than being capable of 1Ghz (or more). Clearly my CPU exceeds that spec. If M$ was open and honest about what the specs really are, the confusion would cease.

Instead they are now pumping out Go Win 10 (GWX.exe) to every W7-SP1 machine with Windows Update with literally millions of them unable to properly install it. Even in my very small circle of retirees the issue is popping up and I'm getting phone calls. What I really believe is that they are hyping the hell out of W10 with the hope that these people with older machines will buy new hardware which translates to $$$ for M$. There has been collusion between M$ and the hardware vendors for years; nothing seems to have changed. But now they have eliminated support for Easy Transfer too, you have to wonder how they expected people to migrate to these new machines?

They say a bit more than that, if you look more closely:

Windows 10 Specifications - Microsoft

"To install a 64-bit OS on a 64-bit PC, your processor needs to support CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF." Nothing about NX (= DEP), though. The implication is that CMPXCHG16b etc. is not required for the 32 bit version; I wonder whether that is true.

I suppose that it would have been nice to have Windows Update download a utility that checked hardware before offering up GWX. It might have saved some disappointment.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that eliminating Windows Easy Transfer was a problem. I haven't used it in years. Don't need it to transfer files, don't trust it to transfer settings. If it could have transferred applications - that would have been interesting.

Coreinfo.exe From TechNet Windows Sysinternals
Coreinfo

Gives the following for INTEL Pentium 4 3200 Prescott 540 LGA775 (Supported features in bold)

Code:

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz
x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 1, GenuineIntel
Microcode signature: 00000017
HTT       	*	Hyperthreading enabled
HYPERVISOR	-	Hypervisor is present
VMX       	-	Supports Intel hardware-assisted virtualization
SVM       	-	Supports AMD hardware-assisted virtualization
X64       	-	Supports 64-bit mode

SMX       	-	Supports Intel trusted execution
SKINIT    	-	Supports AMD SKINIT

NX        	*	Supports no-execute page protection
SMEP      	-	Supports Supervisor Mode Execution Prevention
SMAP      	-	Supports Supervisor Mode Access Prevention
PAGE1GB   	-	Supports 1 GB large pages
PAE       	*	Supports > 32-bit physical addresses
PAT       	*	Supports Page Attribute Table
PSE       	*	Supports 4 MB pages
PSE36     	*	Supports > 32-bit address 4 MB pages
PGE       	*	Supports global bit in page tables
SS        	*	Supports bus snooping for cache operations
VME       	*	Supports Virtual-8086 mode
RDWRFSGSBASE	-	Supports direct GS/FS base access

FPU       	*	Implements i387 floating point instructions
MMX       	*	Supports MMX instruction set
MMXEXT    	-	Implements AMD MMX extensions
3DNOW     	-	Supports 3DNow! instructions
3DNOWEXT  	-	Supports 3DNow! extension instructions
SSE       	*	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSE2      	*	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
SSE3      	*	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSSE3     	-	Supports Supplemental SIMD Extensions 3
SSE4a     	-	Supports Streaming SIMDR Extensions 4a
SSE4.1    	-	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.1
SSE4.2    	-	Supports Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2

AES       	-	Supports AES extensions
AVX       	-	Supports AVX intruction extensions
FMA       	-	Supports FMA extensions using YMM state
MSR       	*	Implements RDMSR/WRMSR instructions
MTRR      	*	Supports Memory Type Range Registers
XSAVE     	-	Supports XSAVE/XRSTOR instructions
OSXSAVE   	-	Supports XSETBV/XGETBV instructions
RDRAND    	-	Supports RDRAND instruction
RDSEED    	-	Supports RDSEED instruction

CMOV      	*	Supports CMOVcc instruction
CLFSH     	*	Supports CLFLUSH instruction
CX8       	*	Supports compare and exchange 8-byte instructions
CX16      	-	Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction
BMI1      	-	Supports bit manipulation extensions 1
BMI2      	-	Supports bit manipulation extensions 2
ADX       	-	Supports ADCX/ADOX instructions
DCA       	-	Supports prefetch from memory-mapped device
F16C      	-	Supports half-precision instruction
FXSR      	*	Supports FXSAVE/FXSTOR instructions
FFXSR     	-	Supports optimized FXSAVE/FSRSTOR instruction
MONITOR   	*	Supports MONITOR and MWAIT instructions
MOVBE     	-	Supports MOVBE instruction
ERMSB     	-	Supports Enhanced REP MOVSB/STOSB
PCLMULDQ  	-	Supports PCLMULDQ instruction
POPCNT    	-	Supports POPCNT instruction
LZCNT     	-	Supports LZCNT instruction
SEP       	*	Supports fast system call instructions
LAHF-SAHF 	-	Supports LAHF/SAHF instructions in 64-bit mode
HLE       	-	Supports Hardware Lock Elision instructions
RTM       	-	Supports Restricted Transactional Memory instructions

DE        	*	Supports I/O breakpoints including CR4.DE
DTES64    	*	Can write history of 64-bit branch addresses
DS        	*	Implements memory-resident debug buffer
DS-CPL    	*	Supports Debug Store feature with CPL
PCID      	-	Supports PCIDs and settable CR4.PCIDE
INVPCID   	-	Supports INVPCID instruction
PDCM      	-	Supports Performance Capabilities MSR
RDTSCP    	-	Supports RDTSCP instruction
TSC       	*	Supports RDTSC instruction
TSC-DEADLINE	-	Local APIC supports one-shot deadline timer
TSC-INVARIANT	-	TSC runs at constant rate
xTPR      	*	Supports disabling task priority messages

EIST      	-	Supports Enhanced Intel Speedstep
ACPI      	*	Implements MSR for power management
TM        	*	Implements thermal monitor circuitry
TM2       	-	Implements Thermal Monitor 2 control
APIC      	*	Implements software-accessible local APIC
x2APIC    	-	Supports x2APIC

CNXT-ID   	*	L1 data cache mode adaptive or BIOS

MCE       	*	Supports Machine Check, INT18 and CR4.MCE
MCA       	*	Implements Machine Check Architecture
PBE       	*	Supports use of FERR#/PBE# pin

PSN       	-	Implements 96-bit processor serial number

PREFETCHW 	-	Supports PREFETCHW instruction

Maximum implemented CPUID leaves: 00000005 (Basic), 80000008 (Extended).

Logical to Physical Processor Map:
**  Physical Processor 0 (Hyperthreaded)

Logical Processor to Socket Map:
**  Socket 0

Logical Processor to NUMA Node Map:
**  NUMA Node 0

No NUMA nodes.

Logical Processor to Cache Map:
**  Data Cache          0, Level 1,   16 KB, Assoc   8, LineSize  64
**  Unified Cache       0, Level 2,    1 MB, Assoc   8, LineSize 128

Logical Processor to Group Map:
**  Group 0

This processor has NX, PAE, and SSE2, so can run x86 Windows 8.x and 10.
PAE is a prerequisite for NX, but no Windows x86 OS implements the use of 4GB or greater physical memory.
This Pentium 4 cannot run a 64-bit OS, so CX16, LAHF/SAHF, etc., are irrelevant.

Windows 10 requires no lesser requirements than Windows 8.1 equivalent versions - even in prelease versions:
System requirements - Microsoft Windows

System requirements : Windows 8.1

If you want to run Windows 8.1 on your PC, here's what it takes:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 (more info)

•RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

•Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

•Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver

Well, this is interesting. The 32 bit version of W10 upgrade install (RTM) complains about the CPU and there is 32 bit W7 already installed on the machine. I'll swap out the drive and see if I can install either 32 or 64 bit versions of RTM will install if no OS is present.

I've got another i5 machine that I'm testing W10 with (x64) and I got to say that there are lots of bugs that M$ needs to address. Lots of configuration click spots do nothing and you need to revert to the old Control Panel to actually get things done.

tgm said:

Well, this is interesting. The 32 bit version of W10 upgrade install (RTM) complains about the CPU and there is 32 bit W7 already installed on the machine. I'll swap out the drive and see if I can install either 32 or 64 bit versions of RTM will install if no OS is present.

I've got another i5 machine that I'm testing W10 with (x64) and I got to say that there are lots of bugs that M$ needs to address. Lots of configuration click spots do nothing and you need to revert to the old Control Panel to actually get things done.

The P4 550 lacks NX (also known as Execute Disable Bit). It also lacks 64 bit instructions. Good luck with the 64 bit installation.

The division of configuration settings between Settings and the old Control Panel is one of the things that MS really ought to fix soon. Actual bugs? None that I've seen, although there was a fair amount of fiddling with drivers on a 2008 laptop with an AMD CPU and an nVidia motherboard chipset.