True and... you know what? I'd be all for security and privacy being important reasons behind the release of Windows 11 too - if they truly were. But they were not. Not really.

The arbitrary way Microsoft chose to set those requirements just stank of pretense (remember how they included their own Surface desktop models while their hardware should theoretically be incompatible?). They never fully explained why this generation of processors made the cut while that didn't. Worst of all: just as you say, they did not seem to have consulted with hardware manufacturers *at all*. If they were serious about security, they would have.

It was all amateur night, from the first day they talked about all that to the day Windows 11 was released to this day even. I never trusted Microsoft anyway, not with the things I know and the things others have proved over the years, but with Windows 11 I lost any kind of respect I had for them in the past. They are ruthless AND incompetent. That I cannot tolerate.