Windows 8 Your PC's CPU isn't compatible message

[polar_bear]

I am checking if my PC is compatible with Windows 8 and get the above message.
It is an almost new Dell Desktop with an Intel Quad CPU 2.4 GHz so thought it would be good enough.
Any ideas please ?

[sarah_louise]

Yes it is more than adequate for Windows 8.
You almost certainly need to change the BIOS settings which on a DELL is F2 at BootUp.
You need to ensure NX (No Execute Bit) is supported in the BIOS.
This is No Execute Page Protection and needed for Windows 8
It will be listed under Virtualization and defaulted to OFF so just change it to ON. Save the changes and reboot.
If you dont feel happy changeing the BIOS find a friendly computer guy and give him this info.

[sarah_louise]

If you still got Not Cpmpatible Message here is a Microsoft Support Answer in addition to doing the above:-

Before I provide the potential workaround, if you can, please properly configure NX in your BIOS.

Here is the potential workaround: Download the ISO and burn it to a DVD or create a bootable USB flash drive. Boot from the media that you created. If your CPU does not support NX you will see a code 5D bluescreen before setup starts. This is rare, but if it happens we won’t be able to help you run Windows 8.

This workaround may succeed because Windows contains two installers: the end user installer (setup.exe at the root of the Windows DVD) and the commercial installer (setup.exe found in the \sources directory of the Windows DVD). The commercial installer runs when the PC is booted from DVD/USB media and does not perform the NX/SSE2 checks and attempts to enable NX/SSE2 on supported systems.

[polar_bear]

Thanks the first option worked OK.