Microsoft has accidentally released Windows 11 for unsupported PCs

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft released the final version of its next big Windows 11 update (22H2) to Release Preview testers on Tuesday, and accidentally made it available to PCs that aren’t officially supported. Oops.

Twitter and Reddit users (via WindowsLatest) were quick to spot the mistake, with hundreds of Windows Insiders able to upgrade their Windows 10 machines on older CPUs. Microsoft has strict minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, leaving millions of PCs behind, so the mistake will once again highlight the company’s controversial upgrade policy.

Image: AceRimmer412 (Reddit)
An unsupported PC gets offered Windows 11.

Windows 11 officially requires Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and up, with very few exceptions. While there are easy ways to install Windows 11 on unsupported CPUs, Microsoft doesn’t even let its Windows Insiders officially install beta builds of the operating system on unsupported PCs, so this mistaken release is rather unusual.

Microsoft is aware of the mistake and says it’s investigating. “It’s a bug and the right team is investigating it,” says the official Windows Insider Twitter account. If you managed to install Windows 11 on an unsupported PC and were expecting only Release Preview updates for Windows 10, you should be able to rollback the unexpected upgrade in the settings section of Windows 11.