- There are scattered reports of Windows 10 PCs being offered a Windows 11 upgrade
- That’s despite the fact that these devices don’t meet the Windows 11 hardware requirements
- This has happened in the past, too, and it looks like it’s a recurring bug – and not an offer you want to take up
There are scattered reports of Windows 10 PCs being offered an upgrade to Windows 11 even though they don’t meet the requirements of the newer operating system.
German tech blog Born City brings us this news (via Neowin), with the author of the post describing an incident with their Dell Latitude 7490.
That laptop is running Windows 10 22H2, and keeps being offered an upgrade to Windows 11 every few months, even though it isn’t compatible with the latter OS, and the author says they’re having to repeatedly dismiss the upgrade prompt.
On top of this, a reader contacted Born City, explaining that their Lenovo IdeaPad, also using version 22H2 of Windows 10, was offered a Windows 11 upgrade despite having TPM 2.0 switched off in the BIOS (this is a hard-and-fast requirement for running Windows 11).
This annoyed the reader, seeing as they had specifically turned off this TPM functionality to avoid getting prompted about an upgrade.
Furthermore, the report points out previous incidents earlier this year, where an IT admin at a company contacted Born City complaining that multiple PCs had been automatically upgraded to Windows 11 24H2 (from Windows 10 22H2) without their knowledge, bypassing all the usual update procedures in place for these business machines.
What’s going on here?
The author of the article asks if any other readers have encountered these offers of Windows 11 upgrades that have been piped through to PCs that shouldn’t be getting them. Notably, there are no responses saying that other people have, and scouring the usual online forums, I can’t find other recent reports of this kind of behavior (on the likes of Reddit, for example).
So, my conclusion at this point is that these are very much scattered incidents, but what’s interesting is that they aren’t happening for the first time.
In my digging around on Reddit, I found reports from early in 2023, reminding me of a very similar incident whereby Windows 10 devices were offered an upgrade to Windows 11.
Back at the time, Microsoft told us: “These ineligible devices did not meet the minimum requirements to run Window 11. Devices that experienced this issue were not able to complete the upgrade installation process.” This was, in fact, a bug that was fixed on the same day.
There are also historic reports of Windows 10 users receiving the Windows 11 upgrade despite having switched off TPM 2.0 (in order to avoid the newer OS, as was the case with the Born City reader mentioned above).
What does all this mean? In my book – and this is just my opinion – this looks to be a recurring bug with Windows 10 (as was previously the case, and seemingly one with a very limited impact this time).
And it’s not like there’s any shortage of glitches that keep making a comeback with Microsoft’s desktop OS – just look at the persisting installation failures with Windows updates across the years.
There are theories around that this could be Microsoft somehow forcing Windows 11 upgrades to help with adoption numbers of the newer operating system, which have spiked recently, which is only to be expected with Windows 10 End of Life now drawing ever closer.
Granted, these theorists could have a point in terms of updates being forced with PCs that have actively tried to avoid them – as in deliberately turning off TPM 2.0, when it’s supported on the device – but I remain skeptical even then.
Neowin points out that a recent stealth update for both Windows 10 and 11, which can force-upgrade PCs to a newer version, may have something to do with all this, and that again is a possibility.
Still, I feel this is buggy behavior, even if that’s true – Microsoft would surely never intentionally push an upgrade to unsupported hardware. And if the rules have changed regarding Windows 11 compatibility somehow, it would be very remiss of Microsoft not to point this out.
What should you do if you encounter an upgrade prompt on an unsupported PC?
So, the question you may have is this point is: what should you do if, by chance, you’re offered a Windows 11 upgrade when your Windows 10 PC doesn’t meet the system requirements of the newer platform?
The simple answer here is: don’t take that upgrade. For starters, the update may fail (especially given that it’s possibly being offered in error), as was the case with previous instances of this happening. And even if it was to succeed, there’s no telling if things might go awry with your Windows 11 installation in the future.
Just like a fudged upgrade to avoid the requirement of having TPM 2.0 – which can be done – the recommendation remains not to take this route.
If you’re worried about the impending death of Windows 10, remember that even though support is going to be officially ending in October 2025, you can now sign up for free updates for another year (all you need to do is sync PC settings to OneDrive, which isn’t a big deal I don’t think – though your opinion might vary).
That’ll give you plenty of breathing space – until October 2026 – to work out what you’re going to do, but I really don’t think trying to run Windows 11 on an officially unsupported PC is a good idea. Not, at least until Microsoft clarifies that Windows 11’s system requirements have somehow been changed, if that’s indeed true (and as mentioned I very much doubt it), or of that happens in the future – and I don’t see that in my crystal ball, either.