Microsoft published the final version of its next big Windows 11 upgrade (22H2) to Release Preview testers on Tuesday, and unintentionally made it available to PCs that aren’t officially supported. Oops.
Users on Twitter and Reddit (via WindowsLatest) were quick to point out the error, and as a result, hundreds of Windows Insiders were able to upgrade their workstations running Windows 10 despite having older CPUs. Due to the fact that Windows 11 has stringent minimum hardware requirements, which will leave millions of PCs behind, Microsoft’s error will once again bring attention to the contentious nature of the company’s upgrade policy.
Windows 11 explicitly requires Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and higher, with very few exceptions. Even though there are straightforward approaches to install Windows 11 on processors that aren’t supported, Microsoft doesn’t even let its Windows Insiders officially install beta builds of the operating system on computers that aren’t supported, so the accidental release of this version is quite unusual.
Microsoft is aware of the mistake and says it’s investigating. “It’s a bug and the right team is investigating it,” writes the official Windows Insider Twitter account. If you have successfully installed Windows 11 on an unsupported computer and were expecting only Release Preview updates for Windows 10, you should be able to roll back the unexpected upgrade through the settings section of Windows 11. If you have any questions about this process, please contact Microsoft Support.