I have a PC with a 7700k that doesn't qualify despite running circles around the crappy Pentiums and Atoms that did get the ability to upgrade. I get that they don't want to support ancient hardware but a good amount of powerful CPUs in the Intel 6XXX and 7XXX series, as well as powerful first-gen Zen CPUs got cut off for no clear reason.
As far as I can tell, Windows barely leverages the new features in TPM 2 for consumer versions and the code for TPM 1.2 still seems to be there. The intruction set also didn't meaningfully change, unless we're talking 2010 era chips.
I'm not using Windows on that desktop anymore so I don't feel too bad about it, but I can easily give my PC to a relative if I get a new one and they'd be able to keep using it for five or six years when it comes to performance. The only real obstacle is software support.
The interesting thing about Kaby-lake/7th is that other CPUs in that generation are allowed by MS. While there is the extensions support aspect, after spectre/meltdown I think part of it was getting AMD/intel to sign up to providing firmware updates for product ranges over the win11 lifespan, then cycle will repeat again for win12.
This was a late addition to the Windows 11 supported CPU list. The rumor is that this happened after it was pointed out that Microsoft was still selling brand new Surface Studio 2 devices that had 7th gen Intel CPUs.
As far as I can tell, Windows barely leverages the new features in TPM 2 for consumer versions and the code for TPM 1.2 still seems to be there. The intruction set also didn't meaningfully change, unless we're talking 2010 era chips.
I'm not using Windows on that desktop anymore so I don't feel too bad about it, but I can easily give my PC to a relative if I get a new one and they'd be able to keep using it for five or six years when it comes to performance. The only real obstacle is software support.