Windows 11 accidentally released by Microsoft for unsupported PCs

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

Twitter and Reddit users were quick to spot the mistake, with hundreds of Windows Insiders able to upgrade their Windows 10 machines on older CPUs.

Since Microsoft has strict minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, the blunder will once again highlight the company’s controversial upgrade policy.

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 said that it is aware of the mistake and is investigating it. “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 roll back the unexpected upgrade in the settings section of Windows 11.