For millions of PC owners, the announcement of Windows 11 brought not a sense of anticipation, but apprehension—and for good reason. Overnight, Microsoft’s new operating system drew a hard line in the sand: unless your machine met strict requirements such as TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, UEFI firmware, and a recent processor (Intel 8th gen, AMD Zen+ or later), your faithful laptop or desktop was now considered obsolete. Estimates peg the number of affected computers worldwide at around 240 million...