Well, after the release of Windows 11 25H2, Microsoft changed the supported processor list pages to just specify CPU "series". For Intel, MS links to Intel's pages for the corresponding series, and in some cases they indicate that only a subset of the processors on the linked pages are actually supported.
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-25h2-supported-intel-processors (and they updates all the past Intel supported processor pages to include series with links instead of CPU names).
For AMD processors for 25H2, they specify series names, but there are no link to an AMD page to match these series to actual processor names.
I did my best to update my Update Windows 11 Supported Processors Lists.ps1 script to support these changes, but the results are not perfect since I can't determine newer AMD CPU names from the information specified.
And, if you compare the current supported Intel processors list in WhyNotWin11 with the output from the updated script, there are some good addition of new CPUs (and some naming fixes), but there are also some supported CPUs missing from the new list. For one example Core(TM) i5-14490F is in the old list, but it's not in the new list because for some reason that specific model isn't included on Intel's 14th Gen i5's page.
But, and this is a big BUT, as you were leaning to in our interactions before, it seems like maybe these hardcoded CPU lists really are not needed at all anymore with the latest WhyNotWin11 code.
In my research when updating this script, I stumbled upon Microsoft's Windows 11 Hardware Readiness Script linked from a Microsoft blog post here.
I don't know how I never came across that before, but when checking the latest WhyNotWin11 code, I see that you recently incorporated those exact CPU checks as well (from #770)!
With Microsofts official Windows 11 Hardware Readiness CPU checks in place, I believe that the other code after that point in WhyNotWin11 could only possibly serve to cause false negative results.
From your comment Borrowed from mq1n it looks like the older code is based on this bit of code in mq1n's Win11SysChecks. And mq1n comments that those check are Reversed checks from Windows's tool (meaning Microsoft's Hardware Readiness Script based on the exact conditions being used).
So, the current WhyNotWin11 code is combining the newly added MS Win11 HW Readiness code while still keeping the previous code in a way that I believe isn't really useful for CPU checking anymore... WhyNotWin11 is first doing the MS Win11 HW Readiness checks, and anything that doesn't fail those should be supported and that could be the end of the checks. But, WhyNotWin11 goes on to then basically doing inverse checks of basically the same exact MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions from mq1n's code (and your own improvements which essentially match the MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions), and then if that wasn't matched somehow (from some unintentional oversight or some future change) it falls back on the supported CPU lists and fails the check if the CPU name is not matched in the lists which are now known the not be 100% complete.
So, I believe at this point everything after the MS Win11 HW Readiness checks are either unnecessary and redundant, or could only serve to give a false negative result since anything that passed the first MS Win11 HW Readiness checks should already have been confirmed to be supported.
How do you feel about removing the old checks and just relying on the conditions from the MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions? Are you aware of some case that something would pass those checks but not actually be supported?
PS. Thanks so much for the shout out in the last release notes!
Well, after the release of Windows 11 25H2, Microsoft changed the supported processor list pages to just specify CPU "series". For Intel, MS links to Intel's pages for the corresponding series, and in some cases they indicate that only a subset of the processors on the linked pages are actually supported.
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-25h2-supported-intel-processors (and they updates all the past Intel supported processor pages to include series with links instead of CPU names).
For AMD processors for 25H2, they specify series names, but there are no link to an AMD page to match these series to actual processor names.
I did my best to update my Update Windows 11 Supported Processors Lists.ps1 script to support these changes, but the results are not perfect since I can't determine newer AMD CPU names from the information specified.
And, if you compare the current supported Intel processors list in WhyNotWin11 with the output from the updated script, there are some good addition of new CPUs (and some naming fixes), but there are also some supported CPUs missing from the new list. For one example Core(TM) i5-14490F is in the old list, but it's not in the new list because for some reason that specific model isn't included on Intel's 14th Gen i5's page.
But, and this is a big BUT, as you were leaning to in our interactions before, it seems like maybe these hardcoded CPU lists really are not needed at all anymore with the latest WhyNotWin11 code.
In my research when updating this script, I stumbled upon Microsoft's Windows 11 Hardware Readiness Script linked from a Microsoft blog post here.
I don't know how I never came across that before, but when checking the latest WhyNotWin11 code, I see that you recently incorporated those exact CPU checks as well (from #770)!
With Microsofts official Windows 11 Hardware Readiness CPU checks in place, I believe that the other code after that point in WhyNotWin11 could only possibly serve to cause false negative results.
From your comment
Borrowed from mq1nit looks like the older code is based on this bit of code in mq1n's Win11SysChecks. And mq1n comments that those check areReversed checks from Windows's tool(meaning Microsoft's Hardware Readiness Script based on the exact conditions being used).So, the current WhyNotWin11 code is combining the newly added MS Win11 HW Readiness code while still keeping the previous code in a way that I believe isn't really useful for CPU checking anymore... WhyNotWin11 is first doing the MS Win11 HW Readiness checks, and anything that doesn't fail those should be supported and that could be the end of the checks. But, WhyNotWin11 goes on to then basically doing inverse checks of basically the same exact MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions from mq1n's code (and your own improvements which essentially match the MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions), and then if that wasn't matched somehow (from some unintentional oversight or some future change) it falls back on the supported CPU lists and fails the check if the CPU name is not matched in the lists which are now known the not be 100% complete.
So, I believe at this point everything after the MS Win11 HW Readiness checks are either unnecessary and redundant, or could only serve to give a false negative result since anything that passed the first MS Win11 HW Readiness checks should already have been confirmed to be supported.
How do you feel about removing the old checks and just relying on the conditions from the MS Win11 HW Readiness conditions? Are you aware of some case that something would pass those checks but not actually be supported?
PS. Thanks so much for the shout out in the last release notes!