I'm going to repeat myself here once again, because there are several here that seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding...
When it comes to Spectre/Meltdown mitigations, you MUST HAVE one of the CPUs that's in the Windows 11 compatibility list. The list is NOT arbitrary, it's literally made out of CPUs that have the technology to properly solve this problem with current methods in the firmware.
ALL OLDER CPUs, even ones that may have TPM 2.0 support, simply lack these features. They also lack specific VM security features that allow the desktop to virtualize correctly. This is important, because MS is shifting into the Kubernetes world like everyone else. This means containers everywhere, and every app a container. This is how Windows 11 will be able to run Android apps natively soon, and how it will be able to use a mixed ARM/AMD64 CPU in the future as well... just like Mac OS does now.
This is literally the future. The line is very clear if you know how CPUs work and you've spent time looking at their feature sets. If you've failed to do this as I have, yes... I can see how you feel this is a money grab.
The only subtext here that's a problem is MS is not coming out and explicitly STATING the above. And I suspect if they did, 7th gen machines that are still under warranty, like my current Dell Server, would have a lever to force Intel into a recall. AMD has similar issues, heck AMD has MORE issues... their support for all this has been just as lacking as everything else they do. That's why they have performance issues in Win11. But, given the scale of this error, Dell and the rest should be replacing machines wholesale... but they aren't because no government is forcing them to. We the little people have zero digital property rights as usual.
So if you want to blame someone, blame AMD and Intel. But even that isn't really all that rational because Spectre/Meltdown style assaults poke holes in predictive execution. Which is the feature that's given us all the CPU performance gains we've had since the 486. So unless you want to revert to 486s, and give up your multi-core CPUs, we get to deal with this new reality where the Laws of Physics have once again beat us all upside the head. The concept of these CPUs being defective is very much up to debate. So a recall doesn't really make a ton of sense on several levels.
Besides, we have Windows 10 until Oct 2025, there's no need for a mad panic, there's no need to install Windows 11 on anything older than gen8 right now. And in the future, plentiful off lease equipment will be there to swap to.
So if you want to use Windows 10, you're good for another four years. If you want to KEEP USING what's currently a decade old crap box in FOUR YEARS... Well... that's just foolish on many levels. Not just because of the above, but because the machine will be ancient, new toys will be available, and you'll be wanting those new toys. This isn't about today, it's about tomorrow, this whole industry is about tomorrow and being stuck in today is a great way to go out of business.
And the elderly that hate change will continue to be a thorn... they always have been... they always will be. Some of you will join them in the next four years I'm sure.
P.S. Secure Boot on native EFI is a huge anti-crypto wall too... This change shows an over 70% reduction in malware in MS's telemetry. Is that due to hardware or habit? We're all about to find out...
*Edit* It's predictive execution, not privileged execution... I need to go back to bed.