While Microsoft never officially supported Windows 11 on its own Lumia lineup, people have been running it for a while using hacks like the one provided by the Lumia WOA project. And Windows 11 does require some beefy hardware which means only the top-of-the-line Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL can run it. These phones are powered by the Snapdragon 810 chip which features 64-bit and ARMv8-A ISA support necessary for running Windows 11.
However, it looks like the option to run Windows 11 on Lumia will soon cease to exist. Twitter user and leakster Xeno noticed that the recent Windows 11 Dev Channel builds are refusing to run on their Lumia 950 XL. There appears to be some compatibility issue going on and Xeno believes it may have to do with the addition of ARMv8.1 necessity in some of the recent builds.
It appears to be the end of the line for running Windows on the Lumia 950XL (ARM v8.0)
— Xeno (@XenoPanther) October 4, 2022
Not sure about the specifics but starting with build 25188, ARM v8.1 or later is needed. pic.twitter.com/PGOh7j4xjJ
The problem was noticed in build 25188, and the previous build 25182 went a bit further and ended up with a blue screen of death (BSOD).
25182 at least gets to the spinner and givew a BSOD pic.twitter.com/KhBshwzOHU
— Xeno (@XenoPanther) October 4, 2022
What this means is that Windows 11 on a Lumia device may be at the end of its road unless it's some bug or issue that gets fixed in the future. We'll keep you posted.
Update: It looks like another Twitter user Longhorn noticed the issue a couple of days before Xeno did.
22H2 is the end of the road on ARMv8.0 systems.
— Longhorn (@never_released) October 3, 2022
Windows Insider build 25188 and later will not run anymore on RPi it looks like. https://t.co/QEaehH7InS
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