Earlier this month, Neowin was on the prowl for some tasty news when we stumbled upon an updated webpage on Microsoft's site. The page, a support article regarding installation of Windows 11 on unsupported hardware was recently updated to include some new things.
First, Microsoft corrected the waiver users need to agree to when they proceed to installing Windows 11 on any hardware that is not officially supported by Microsoft. Second, a very handy direct link to the Windows Recovery menu was added such that users experiencing issues on incompatible systems can roll back to Windows 11. You can find the detailed changes in our dedicated piece.
If you recall, Microsoft officially recommends a new PC for upgrading to Windows 11 from very old systems and we speculated that perhaps the changes to the support page were made since the Redmond company probably understands not everyone may upgrade.
Following our discovery of the updated page, others in the press also started reporting on it too. Microsoft has noticed the buzz and has updated the article yet again. This time, the headline of the piece has been updated from "Installing Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements" to "Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements".
Aside from that, Microsoft has also clarified that it does not officially allow users on unsupported hardware to run Windows 11 and users should immediately go back to Windows 10.
It writes:
Important: Updated December 12, 2024
This support article was originally published on October 4, 2021, when Windows 11 was first released to the public. At the time of publication and still today, the intention behind this support page is to detail considerations for customers to understand the implications of installing Windows 11 against Microsoft's recommendation on devices that don't meet system requirements for Windows 11. If you installed Windows 11 on a device not meeting Windows 11 system requirements, Microsoft recommends you roll back to Windows 10 immediately.
Windows 11 minimum system requirements remain unchanged ...
Hence, for those running Windows 10 on devices that don't meet the system requirements of Windows 11, it looks like Microsoft is in favor of a new PC after all once 10 reaches the end of support state. You can check out some of the tips in this article on ways to reuse such a system.
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