Microsoft, after numerous user complaints, promised to soon fix a bug in the latest Windows 10 updates with system applications not working on PCs with older processors, for example, Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon. As some of you could expect, the issue is related to the missing SSE 4.2 instructions, which are now a mandatory thing to the upcoming Windows 11 24H2. The raise of Windows 11 system requirements has accidentally affected Windows 10.
In January 2024, Windows 10 users began experiencing issues with broken applications on older processors after installing updates from Microsoft. This led to error messages when trying to open inbox software, such as the Photos app, Calculator app, and others, with a "file system error" notification appearing. The problem is believed to be caused by the lack of support for the PopCnt instruction on older processors, leading to compatibility issues with certain applications.
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Microsoft has determined that the issue affecting the Photos app on Windows 10 is a result of a regression in the vclibs infrastructure package. The Visual C++ team is currently working on a final patch to address this issue. The problem was reported by users who had installed Visual Studio update version 17.8.0, but it has already been resolved in the latest version of Visual Studio 2022 (version 17.9.1) where a bug related to static linking has been fixed.
Microsoft has now confirmed that Windows 11 24H2 requires support for the PopCnt instruction, which is not present in processors released before 2006. This means that running Windows 11 on older CPUs, such as AMD Turion II and Intel Core 2 Duo, may not be possible without finding a workaround for this limitation. Users attempting to boot Windows 11 24H2 on processors without PopCnt support may encounter freezing on the loading screen with the Windows logo.
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