When Microsoft first announced Windows 11, we quickly realized that the company had made some drastic changes to system requirements. There are now some strict requirements for CPUs supported by the new operating system. However, when testing in Windows Insider began, the Redmond company was less strict.
Let's see how the company worked.
If you were on the Dev channel before the announcement, you could expect Windows 11. Once it was released, you would have to go back to Windows 10 or you would be in an unsupported state, assuming your computer is not compatible.
Now, Microsoft has started throwing out (with the glove) unsupported computers out of the Windows Insider program Dev channel. If you are in the Dev channel and your processor is not in the list of supported, you will probably find that you need to go back to Windows 10 to continue receiving updates.
Let us remember the story.
Windows 10 in the 20H2, 21H1, and 21H2 versions was released with activation packages based on the 2004 version. But by the spring of 2020, Microsoft began releasing prerelease builds to the Dev channel, without any of these features being released in Windows 10. These prerelease builds finally became Windows 11.
This means that when Microsoft decided on the new system requirements, it had to think of a solution for all Windows Insiders that would not meet the requirements of Windows 11, but were already running prerelease builds.
So here comes the bad news, since the general rule used by the company is that if the build number shrinks, you will need to reset to factory defaults.
So Redmond decided to leave Insiders on the Dev channel for Windows 11 testing.
Apparently, these users were used to collect data by telemetry. When Microsoft said it would look into seventh-generation Intel processors and AMD Zen for possible support for Windows 11, it had to look at all the data from Insiders that could run Windows 11.
So the company was able to collect statistics that reported that computers with new hardware had 99,8% trouble-free experience, while unsupported computers had 52% more errors.
So now that the trials are over, what will happen to the Insiders? It has never been fun to have to restart your computer, but that is the danger of Insider.
