Windows 11 readiness checklist showing PC Health Check, TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, CPU support and BitLocker recovery keys.

How to Check If Your PC Is Ready for Windows 11: TPM, Secure Boot, CPU and Recovery Keys

The fastest safe way to check whether your PC is ready for Windows 11 is to run Microsoft’s PC Health Check app, then confirm the result with two built-in Windows screens: tpm.msc for TPM 2.0 and msinfo32 for BIOS Mode and Secure Boot State. The important word is safe. A lot of Windows 11 upgrade problems happen after someone sees “TPM not found” or “Secure Boot unsupported,” opens BIOS, flips several settings, and then discovers the PC no longer boots or BitLocker wants a recovery key. This guide is built around that real-world failure point. It shows what to check, what each result means, and what to do next without treating every old PC like a simple settings toggle. ...

Editorial illustration of a Windows PC boot path passing a Secure Boot certificate check before a June 2026 deadline.

Windows Secure Boot Certificates Expire in 2026: What to Check Before June

Microsoft is replacing the Secure Boot certificates that many Windows PCs have trusted since 2011. Two of those old certificate authorities start expiring in June 2026, and the Windows boot certificate follows in October 2026. That sounds like a timer attached to every PC. It is not quite that. Microsoft says unsupported certificate state should not make a normal PC instantly stop booting on June 1, 2026. The more realistic risk is quieter but still important: a PC that misses the 2023 certificate refresh may stop being eligible for future early-boot protections, boot-manager security updates, revocations and recovery-media changes. So the right move is not panic. The right move is to check now, update safely, and avoid breaking your own recovery path. ...