- There are scattered reports of Windows 10 PC offered an upgrade of Windows 11
- It is despite the fact that these devices do not meet the material requirements of Windows 11
- This has happened in the past too, and it seems that it is a recurring bug – and not an offer you want to adopt
There are reports dispersed on Windows 10 PCs offered to Windows 11, even if they do not meet the requirements of the new operating system.
The blog of German technology née City brings us this news (via Neowin), with the author of the article describing an incident with their Dell Latitude 7490.
This laptop runs Windows 10 10:2 p.m. and continues to pretend to Windows 11 every few months, even if it is not compatible with this last operating system, and the author says that they must repeatedly reject the upgrade prompt.
In addition to that, a reader contacted Born City, explaining that its Lenovo Ideapad, also using the 22:2 hour version of Windows 10, was offered an upgrade of Windows 11 despite the fact that TPM 2.0 is off in the BIOS (this is a difficult and fast requirement to execute Windows 11).
This annoyed the reader because they had specifically disabled this TPM functionality to avoid being invited to an upgrade.
In addition, the report underlines the previous incidents earlier this year, where an IT administrator in a company contacted Born City complaining that several PCs had been automatically upgraded to Windows 11 24h2 (from Windows 10 22h2) without their knowledge, by bypassing all the usual update procedures in place for these commercial machines.
What’s going on here?
The author of the article asks if other readers have met these Windows 11 upgrades that have been killed on PCs that should not obtain them. In particular, there are no answers saying that other people have, and browsing the usual online forums, I cannot find other recent reports of this type of behavior (on Reddit, for example).
So, my conclusion at this stage is that these are very dispersed incidents, but what is interesting is that they do not happen for the first time.
By searching Reddit, I found reports at the beginning of 2023, reminding myself a very similar incident by which Windows 10 devices were offered at Windows 11.
Back at the time, Microsoft said to us: “These ineligible devices did not meet the minimum requirements to execute the window 11. The devices that encountered this problem could not finish the upgrading installation process.” It was, in fact, a bug that was corrected the same day.
There are also historical reports on Windows 10 users receiving the upgrade of Windows 11 despite having extinguished TPM 2.0 (in order to avoid the more recent operating system, as was the case with the city reader born above).
What does it mean? In my book – and that’s just my opinion – it seems to be a recurring bug with Windows 10 (as it was before, and apparently one with a very limited impact this time).
And it is not as if there was a shortage of problems that continue to return with Microsoft’s office operating system – just look at persistent installation failures with Windows updates over the years.
There are theories that could be Microsoft in a way forcing Windows 11 upgrades to help adopt the adoption numbers of the new operating system, which has increased recently, which is only to be expected Windows 10 end of life is now closer and closer.
Admittedly, these theorists could have a point in terms of forced updates with PCs who have actively tried to avoid them – as if to deliberately deactivate TPM 2.0, when taken care of on the device – but I remain skeptical even.
Neowin underlines a recent stealth update for Windows 10 and 11, which can force the upgrading of PCs to a more recent version, can have something to do with all this, and it is still a possibility.
However, I think it is a buggy behavior, even if it is true – Microsoft would certainly never intentionally push an upgrade towards unprepared equipment. And if the rules have changed concerning the compatibility of Windows 11 in one way, it would be very discreet of Microsoft not to report it.
What should you do if you meet an upgrade prompt on a PC not supported?
So, the question you could have is this point is: what should you do if, by chance, we offer you an upgrade of Windows 11 when your Windows 10 PC does not meet the system requirements of the new platform?
The simple answer here is: do not take this upgrade. To start, the update can fail (especially since it may be offered by mistake), as was the case with the previous instances of what is happening. And even if it was to succeed, we do not know if things could go wrong with your Windows 11 installation in the future.
Like an upgrade struck to avoid the requirement of having TPM 2.0 – which can be done – the recommendation does not remain to take this route.
If you worry about the imminent death of Windows 10, remember that even if the medium will officially end in October 2025, you can now register for free updates for another year (all you have to do is synchronize the PC parameters in OneDrive, which is not a big problem, I do not think – although your opinion may vary).
This will give you a lot of breathing space – until October 2026 – to determine what you are going to do, but I really do not think that trying to execute Windows 11 on a PC officially not taken care of is a good idea. No, at least until Microsoft specifies that the requirements of the Windows 11 system have somehow changed, if it is really true (and as mentioned, I doubt it a lot), or it happens in the future – and I don’t see that in my crystal ball either.
