Microsoft this week made it official: it will begin distributing Windows 11 on October 5, just five weeks away, to eligible PCs.
“As of today, free upgrades to Windows 11 will begin rolling out to eligible Windows 10 PCs and PCs preloaded with Windows 11 will become available for purchase,” wrote Aaron Woodman, general manager of Windows marketing, in an Aug. 31 post to company blogs.
Even though the rollout of Windows 11 will start on October 5th, the process will be very long. “We expect all eligible devices to be offered a free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022,” Woodman said.
At launch delivery 11, the operating system will be offered to “new eligible devices,” although Microsoft did not specify how the new PC should snatch the first place-in-line. New machines available on and after October 5 will come with Windows 11 pre-installed, although again, Microsoft isn’t quite ready to do it all, saying, “PCs pre-loaded with Windows 11 will become available for purchase.”
Implications: a number of PCs will come with 11, but likely not all.
The ambiguity here isn’t unusual for Microsoft on a new OS debut, but then the 11 out of 10 succession will be different from previous upgrades: Windows 11, even considering UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) changes, could easily have been dubbed Windows 10 21H2 or, if following an older practice, Windows 10.1. Microsoft arbitrarily raised numbers with far less justification than other name changes (with the exception of a few steps from x to point-X-1).
Next to receive Windows 11 are currently in use devices that Microsoft modeling predicts will most likely run the upgrade successfully. Developer Redmond, Wash. have been deploying updates and upgrades for several years now using the same or similar systems which, in general, favor newer devices over older devices with newer components, over older ones, such as CPUs and graphics processors.
That the upgrade offer will extend by nine months suggests a cautious implementation, perhaps due to the much stricter system requirements that Microsoft has set for, among other things, current and future security needs.
Windows Update will notify users when their PC can be upgraded to Windows 11, if eligible at all. Alternatively, users can manually trigger an update request, which may or may not result in Windows 11 being downloaded and installed.
Managed devices, such as standards for upgrades, will keep their current OS — Windows 10 for the most part — until IT admins decide differently.
The September update for Endpoint Manager is scheduled to provide admins with information about PCs that qualify for the 11th, Microsoft said in a separate post on Tuesday. Next month, window part of End point analysis will show “readiness of all your managed devices to upgrade to Windows 11.”
Administrators are not required to upgrade their organization’s PCs to Windows 11, at least not yet. Windows 10, Microsoft has said before — and Woodman repeated his point Tuesday — will be supported until October 2025.
Woodman dedicated much of his post to device-by-device sales promotions touting new systems that could run Windows 11. If the proportionality of Woodman’s post is any indication, Microsoft’s main reason for Windows 11 is selling new hardware.
Microsoft has also promised to release minor feature enhancements for Windows 10 this fall, but hasn’t set a date for that release yet. Woodman did not specify the timing of this Windows 10 21H2 release, or explain whether Windows 10 will receive additional feature and functionality updates after this year.