If you have been a Neowin reader for a while, you probably are well aware about Windows 11 and the associated system requirements. In brief, they are pretty particular and sometimes even Microsoft employees are taken aback by these requirements. And while a hardened eligibility criteria is not always a bad thing in itself, Windows 11 remains buggy and often a perfectly compatible system can also exhibit symptoms of an unsupported PC.
Such is the case with an old, persistent bug in the Windows 11"s security app which shows the error "Standard hardware security not supported" even on supported PCs. We reported on this bug last year in June, and even though Microsoft should have already fixed the issue more than once, Neowin members on an ongoing forum thread have commented that they are seeing the problems in newer builds too.
User DeusVult says they are now seeing this issue on their system where "Standard hardware security is not met" error message is displayed because apparently their "device does not apparently meet the requirements":
DeusVult however says that their PC has all the requirements covered and speculates that a Windows reset they recently performed may have introduced this bug. They write:
Same crazy problem, everything is updated and working well, might it be because I reseted [sic] windows? and if it"s so, does anybody has a solution for this?
BIOS Updated
TPM 2 working
UEFI ok
Secure Boot ok
DEP ok
Another Neowin member Raulll03 faced a similar issue, where resetting the laptop led to the same "standard hardware security not supported" problem. Raulll03 says they have the latest Windows 11 Patch Tuesday installed, which is essentially the Moment 2 feature update. Here"s what they say:
Hi everyone! I have a problem with the hardware security standard, because it"s not supported. I reset my laptop due to personal issues, but before resetting it the standard hardware security was supported. My laptop has all the latest updates installed, Windows 11 Home 22H2 22621.1265.
Feedback Hub also has plenty of recent reports about the same issue as you can see in the screenshot below (click to zoom in):
On a previous report which was heavily upvoted, senior Jennifer Gentleman, a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, provided the following response. In the response, she also alludes to the fact that the bug can be a recurring one, though, it should go away on its own sometime again with a future Windows Security update:
Thanks for taking the time to report this - we"ve investigated and with Build 25169 (which just went live for the Dev Channel) have fixed an issue believed to be the root cause of Windows Security saying standard hardware security wasn’t supported on devices where it was actually supported, as well as showing a warning in the taskbar but not showing any issues when Windows Security was launched.
Please note, due to timing of the payload, these issues may come back after the next Windows Security update. It will go away again after a future Windows Security update.
UPDATE: If you are seeing this again in the Dev Channel, please see the note above. Appreciate your patience
Alongside this issue, the latest Patch Tuesday may also have introduced another old bug performance-related bug. Some users have complained that their SSDs are exhibiting poor speeds after the Patch.