Update: Soon after this article was published, Microsoft removed the hard/soft floor distinction for Windows 11. Many PC makers are also now giving guidance on which PCs will get it. Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central)Įven the requirements for Windows 11 are a bit confusing as there are both 'hard' and 'soft' floors of cutoffs for the update. If the signatures are valid, the PC boots, and the firmware gives control to the operating system. When the PC starts, the firmware checks the signature of each piece of boot software, including UEFI firmware drivers (also known as Option ROMs), EFI applications, and the operating system. Secure boot is a security standard developed by members of the PC industry to help make sure that a device boots using only software that is trusted by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). From Microsoft's documentation (opens in new tab): Secure boot is becoming increasingly important, too.

Your biometrics, like fingerprints or facial recognition data, do not go to the cloud instead, they get hardware encrypted on your PC so that info cannot be retrieved nor reversed engineered to bypass your PC's login process. This ability is why Windows Hello is so protected. With TPM, BitLocker gets to store the encryption key and your Windows Hello biometrics securely. Windows Defender System Guard (opens in new tab).In the real world, TPM allows for things like:

Windows 11 tpm 1.2