It’s the controversy of the year. But a new third-party tool does a much better job than Microsoft at explaining why you can’t upgrade to Windows 11.

I assume everyone is on board with the notion that Microsoft’s hardware requirements for Windows 11, especially its TPM 2.0 requirement, have landed poorly within the community. I still feel that this won’t be a problem for most so-called “normal” people, either because they purchased PCs from big-name companies and don’t need to worry about it or because they simply will never care about any Windows upgrade. But whatever. It’s a problem.

Microsoft doesn’t have a real solution to the hardware compatibility issues beyond “just buy a new PC.” But it does offer a PC Health Check app that will give you a one-line answer if your PC is deemed incompatible with the Windows 11 upgrade. And that’s kind of the problem: In many cases, you may need to make more than one change to your PC to make it compatible; say, by enabling TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. And the Microsoft tool, despite a few quick upgrades, is still borderline useless.

Enter WhyNotWin11. This very useful tool will list out all of Windows 11’s hardware requirements and then show you whether your PC passes muster in each case. So if you have multiple issues, you can find out what they are all at once and then, hopefully, address them.

Enjoy.