News
Microsoft Expands Its Windows 11 Push to More Devices
- By Kurt Mackie
- October 28, 2021
Microsoft this week said it has "increased" the pace of making Windows 11 available to eligible devices.
According to an Oct. 27 note this Microsoft document:
The availability of Windows 11 has been increased and we are leveraging our latest generation machine learning model to offer the upgrade to an expanded set of eligible devices. We recommend that you upgrade your devices to Windows 11 to take advantage of the latest features and advanced protections from security threats. We will continue to train our machine learning model throughout the phased rollout to deliver a smooth upgrade experience. We will also provide status updates as we further increase availability over time.
Microsoft predetermines if systems can handle a Windows 11 upgrade via its machine learning processes. The OS bits are said to not arrive if machines aren't up to spec, as determined by Microsoft's algorithms. Machines failing this minimum systems requirements check will just continue to run with Windows 10, which is supported through Oct. 14, 2025.
The accelerated pace of the Windows 11 rollout also was publicized by Microsoft in this Oct. 28 Windows Update Twitter post.
Likely, Microsoft's note is meant to apply to mostly consumer Windows users, or to organizations that may have PCs that are unmanaged. Microsoft isn't pushing Windows 11 out to organizations with fleets of managed PCs, according to Aria Carley, a Microsoft program manager focused on the commercial management of Windows updates, in this Sept. 27 Twitter post.
Organizations using Microsoft's Windows Update for Business management solutions will need to specifically target getting the Windows 11 feature update as "your managed devices will not automatically upgrade to Window 11," Carley noted in a Sept. 23 Twitter post.
Microsoft commercially released Windows 11 on Oct. 4, and noted that it's a free upgrade for Windows 10 systems that meet the new operating system's minimum requirements. Individuals with Windows 10 systems that pass Windows 11's stringent hardware requirements will be offered the new OS via the Windows Update mechanism. It'll replace the underlying Windows 10 bits with Windows 11 bits via an automated "in-place upgrade" approach. However, it's possible for users to decline the upgrade and continue with Windows 10.
Windows 11 is currently at "version 21H2," which represents its debut commercial release version.
Microsoft's automated OS upgrade process hasn't always proved to be flawless. In 2016, Microsoft was successfully sued for rendering a PC "unusable" after an unwanted Windows 10 upgrade was pushed.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.