No, Microsoft Has Not 'reversed Course' On Windows 11 Hardware Requirements

Microsoft's muddled messaging on Windows 11 hardware compatibility requirements has been causing confusion for its customers for the past three years. This week, a simple update to an old support article sparked a frenzy of breathless headlines proclaiming that the company had given up on those hardware compatibility requirements and would soon allow any old PC to upgrade.

That's not true. But it didn't stop some tech-focused blogs from getting swept up in the confusion.

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It's always hard to identify Patient Zero in one of these incidents, but as far as I can tell that honor goes to the German PC-Welt. Its U.S. sister publication, PC World, translated the article for a U.S. audience: "Despite years of warning, it's now officially possible to install Windows 11 on PCs that don't meet requirements. [I]n an unexpected and puzzling move, the company is issuing instructions for installing Windows 11 on incompatible PCs."

And the race was on.

• TechSpot was matter-of-fact: "Microsoft now allows Windows 11 installations on unsupported hardware, devices."
• Tom's Guide insisted, "Microsoft will let you install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs after all."
• Techzine announced, with absolute confidence: "Microsoft raises white flag: older PCs can run Windows 11, of course."
• ZDNET's sister site, ExtremeTech, called this week's news "a stunning reversal" of Microsoft's previous insistence on the Windows 11 hardware requirements.

None of that was true. Nothing changed this week. Nothing was unexpected, puzzling, or stunning.

So, what actually happened? The real story is about as anodyne as tech news gets, and typical of Microsoft's bumbling communications on Windows 11.

Someone in Redmond updated an old support article, originally published on launch day for Windows 11. Those latest updates were exceedingly minor, consisting of a few copy-editing clean-ups and the removal of a section on the old PC Health Check app.

Then they released the lightly edited article under a completely different URL, with no reference to the earlier support article. A tech blogger saw it, assumed it was fresh news, and leapt to some uncalled-for conclusions. Even some of my well-connected colleagues saw the coverage and called me, asking "Did Microsoft really cave?"

I tracked down an older copy of that article, which was still available at Microsoft.com but appears to have since been deleted.

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Then I copied its text into a Word document, copied the text of this week's article into another Word document, and used Microsoft's own redlining features to see the extremely minor changes.

After a couple days of this, some red-faced tech writer at Redmond no doubt heard from a manager who was tired of getting queries from other tech sites asking what was going on, and attached a note to the top of the newly published version:

Important:  Updated December 12, 2024  

This support article was originally published on October 4, 2021, when Windows 11 was first released to the public. At the time of publication and still today, the intention behind this support page is to detail considerations for customers to understand the implications of installing Windows 11 against Microsoft's recommendation on devices that don't meet system requirements for Windows 11. If you installed Windows 11 on a device not meeting Windows 11 system requirements, Microsoft recommends you roll back to Windows 10 immediately.

Windows 11 minimum system requirements remain unchanged and can be found in the article Windows 11 specs, features, and computer requirements. 

Like I said, nothing's changed from last month or last year or three years ago. Microsoft really doesn't want you to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, but it provides mechanisms for doing so, primarily for the benefit of corporate customers. You can read all about it here: "How to upgrade an 'incompatible' Windows 10 PC to Windows 11: Two ways."

And here's a note for that harried tech writer at Microsoft HQ. One point in that article might need yet another round of edits. The article says when Windows 11 is installed on a device that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements, a watermark is added to the Windows 11 desktop. That was true for preview releases of Windows 11 in 2021 and early 2022, but to my knowledge it was never applied to official releases. My testing as well as reports from hundreds of readers says it's not happening on released versions of Windows 11 in 2024 (soon to be 2025).

I'll let you know if that article gets updated.