Microsoft"s communication regarding minimum requirements for Windows 11 has been a mess so far. The company has had to clarify its stance on minimum requirements for the OS, fix its buggy PC Health Check app, and brace itself for the backlash by not supporting older CPUs and those without a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. In fact, along with announcing the general availability date for Windows 11 as October 5, the company once again updated its requirements to allow certain 7th-gen processors to upgrade to its latest OS too.
However, those enjoying Windows 11 on unsupported machines via the Insider Program will be unhappy to know that Microsoft has started kicking out such configurations. As reported to Neowin by several of our readers, people running the OS on non-compliant PCs are now seeing the following notification via Windows Update:
Your PC does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11. Your device is not eligible to join the Windows Insider Program on Windows 11. Please install Windows 10 to participate in the Windows Insider Program in the Release Preview Channel.
Presumably, this means that people with unsupported machines will not be able to receive the next Windows 11 Insider builds.
To be clear, this move is not entirely unexpected. As pointed out by the Senior Program Manager for the Insider Program, Brandon LeBlanc, when Microsoft unveiled Windows 11 on June 24, it announced that PCs not meeting the minimum hardware requirements for the OS will not be eligible for preview builds on both the Beta and Release Preview channels. Meanwhile, those on the Dev Channel will only be allowed to receive builds until the general availability of Windows 11 - that is October 5 -, after which they"ll need to go back to Windows 10.
As it stands, the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11 are that your machine should have one of these AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm processors, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, UEFI and Secure Boot-capable firmware, TPM 2.0, a graphics card compatible with DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver, and a 720p display greater than 9 inches diagonally.
While Microsoft may be removing unsupported hardware from the Insider Preview, it is interesting to note that the company has still left an entry path open for enthusiasts. Essentially, you can still update to Windows 11 using ISOs provided that your PC has TPM 1.2, 64GB storage, 4GB RAM, and a dual-core CPU. That said, machines running in this "unsupported state" may not receive security updates.