Microsoft accidentally allowed unsupported PCs to upgrade to Windows 11 22H2

Earlier this week, Microsoft began offering the Windows 11 22H2 update to Windows Insiders through the Release Preview channel. But the update wasn’t just for those who were supposed to get it – it was also released to many PCs that don’t meet Windows 11’s new strict system requirements.

According to Neowin, Reddit and Twitter users whose unsupported Windows 10 PCs were subscribed to the Release Preview channel were shown notifications that the Windows 11 22H2 update was available and that their PCs suddenly met the requirements to install it. This raised the possibility that Microsoft might be loosening the system requirements for Windows 11, but the Windows Insider Program Twitter account confirmed yesterday that the notifications were due to a bug and that the requirements are not changing.

Windows 11 typically requires an 8th generation Intel Core processor or an AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor or better, as well as Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 support to handle disk encryption and other security features. PCs manufactured and sold from late 2017 to 2018 can generally run the OS, while older PCs generally cannot. Microsoft claims that these new PCs will run Windows 11 more reliably and that they support security features that older PCs don’t, though the limits are still somewhat arbitrary.

You can technically install Windows 11 on just about any computer that can run Windows 10 64-bit, as we’ve found in our testing. Windows 11 22H2 is no more or less restrictive than the original version of Windows 11 in this regard, and once installed it will run and receive updates more or less normally, perhaps with some annoying messages. But until now, Microsoft has been careful not to offer the update for unsupported PCs, requiring a manual update or a clean install rather than allowing the update to be installed directly.

Windows 10 users who didn’t want to upgrade to Windows 11 should be able to use the built-in recovery tools to roll back to Windows 10 without losing data.