Microsoft just released a new version the PC Health Check app for Windows. The old version checked your backup, Windows Update, storage capacity and startup time.
What’s the fuss with the new PC Health Check? It checks if your computer is deemed capable of running Windows 11.
Installing the new PC Health Check
You can download the new PC Health Check directly from here. It’s only around 14MB in size and a quick install. Just say yes to the agreement and then click open at the end.
This only checks one machine at a time so it’s not recommend to use it for your whole office.
Windows 11 Readiness Check
Rather than wade through long lists of CPUs not supported by Windows 11, the PC health check will examine all the computer components for you. From my sample picture below you can see that the CPU on the test machine is not supported. In theory I could replace the CPU and enable TPM to make this machine ready but as noted on the left hand side panel the computer is four years old. Not really worth investing in the upgrade.
If you click on See all results you can see what is compatible. Microsoft claims 4GB of RAM will be enough for Windows 11 when it isn’t enough to run Windows 10 properly. While the machine in question has more than enough hard drive space, it reality Windows 10 runs very slowly on that hard drive. Again not a good candidate for a new operating system.
I would take the whole Windows 10 Readiness Check with some big grains of salt. You need to look at the age of the machine, how it’s operating now and cost of upgrade parts and installation before deciding if a computer is ready for Windows 11. See my blog about Windows 11 release in October.
Startup Time Check
Getting better startup time is something I hear about from clients all the time. This Startup Time Check does absolutely nothing you couldn’t do better another way. Clicking on Details just gives you a banal message about how startup times vary and then a link to Startup apps (which is already there in Windows Settings). You can also view the startup apps via the Task Manager. Nothing useful here.
Backup and Sync
I have to fail this feature too. It didn’t detect that this computer was using Windows own File History for backup. The message seems to reference Microsoft 365 account settings not the actual backup settings on the computer. This message is bound to confuse and worry end users just like Microsoft’s shotgun wedding of Microsoft 365 accounts to local computer accounts.
Storage Capacity and Windows Update
Nothing to see here really. Which is a shame. I would love to be able to set custom disk space warning messages for users something like 20 or 25% left rather than the paltry 10% warning that Microsoft hides from plain sight.
And if you have to rely on the PC Health Check to know about your Windows Updates I suspect you have turned off all the notifications on your computer.
New PC Health Check
If you want to check one office computer at a time for Windows 11 readiness sort of. You could quickly weed out some computers. I wouldn’t recommend this for checking a whole office for Windows 11 or other PC health issues.
