Since the official announcement of windows 11, no doubt what has been talked about the most is its technical requirements and, especially, of the minimum requirements that a system must meet in order to be able to install the operating system on it. Some requirements that at first, and according to itself were unchangeable, but that with the passage of weeks and months have actually undergone quite a few changes, something that was reasonably foreseeable.
Only in the last seven days, we have seen how ASUS added support for Windows 11 on its old boards, how after the collaboration between Intel and Microsoft new compatible CPUs were added and, even, how Redmond’s have finally backtracked, allowing it to be possible to install Windows 11 on any system, compatible or not, although with certain limitations … and that is precisely what we have to talk about.
As we have already told you, users of systems that do not meet the minimum requirements of Windows 11 but still want to update their systems, will not be able to do so through Windows Update and, in addition, in principle they will not have access to operating system updates, including security. This is because Microsoft cannot support systems that do not meet the minimum specifications on Windows 11.
Just yesterday, the insiders who were testing Windows 11 on systems that did not meet these minimums, began to receive messages stating that they can no longer be updated in this way, and that they must return to Windows 10. It is not that their systems operations have been blocked, they will actually be able to continue using them, but it was claimed they would no longer receive updates from here to the launch of the operating system that, we remind you, will take place on October 5.
And why am I speaking in the past tense, even though that information is from yesterday? Well because, as we can read in a tweet by Brandon LeBlanc, Senior Programmer on the Windows Insiders Team, some systems remain within the Windows 11 testing program despite not meeting technical requirements And, although those systems will not receive new builds, yes they will receive cumulative updates to be published until next October 5.
The PCs given an exception will no longer receive any new future Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel but will still get Cumulative Updates for Windows 11 leading up to GA. As I said, there is a distinction between * new builds * here.
– Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) September 1, 2021
And what does this mean? Why do some systems, despite not meeting the technical specifications, continue to receive updates? We are talking about the insider program, that is, the one Microsoft uses to do all kinds of tests. Does this mean that they are rethinking allowing Windows 11 updates to some systems not supported by the operating system? It sounds weird, but I can’t think of another explanation.
However, and in that case, Wouldn’t it make more sense to go back over the Windows 11 minimum requirements? Or maybe it is that they are considering that all these systems can make the leap to the new operating system, but that once there they have to stay in the initial version, without being able to access the large updates, but for security, yes to the cumulative ones? All this is really confusing, and it seems that even in Redmond they are not totally clear what to do with all the systems that, today, would be left out of Windows 11 or, in the best-worst case, in Windows 11 without support or updates.
It would be easier to try to find out what Microsoft is up to if we knew what the conditions are that unsupported systems meet but will continue to receive cumulative updates until October 5. However, for now we only know that this exception exists, but not which computers it affects.
And all this just over a month after the launch of Windows 11. I have the feeling that we have a month of the most entertaining, informatively speaking, in this regard.