Windows 11 disaster strikes again as incompatible PCs are offered an upgrade

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Windows 11 upgrades were recently offered to some Windows 10 users with PCs that did not meet the requirements for the newer operating system.

The major clanger dropped by Microsoft was made worse by the fact that this is the second time such an upgrade has been pushed to devices that don’t actually meet the system specs required for Windows 11.

PhantomOfEarth first highlighted that this was happening on Twitter when the Windows leaker was offered Windows 11 on a PC with just 2GB of RAM (when the OS needs a minimum of 4GB).

Analysis: A quick fix – but how did this happen again?

So, the good news, if you can call it that, is that at least if a user tried to forge ahead with the upgrade, the installer didn’t allow it to go ahead (possibly leaving the PC in an unfortunate creek-related situation if it did). The user could go as far as downloading the installer, mind you, and firing it up.

Furthermore, only some users were affected, and Microsoft notes that the problem was fixed on the same day that it was discovered, which is a laudably swift remedy.

The main problem here is that as mentioned, this isn’t the first time this has happened, which certainly gives more than a little pause for thought about why the upgrade system went awry once again. Last time, though, unsupported PCs were allowed to upgrade, doubtless with unpredictable results in some cases.

Hopefully Microsoft will take a good hard look at whatever might be causing these sorts of problems, and we won’t see a third episode of errant Windows 11 upgrades playing on monitors near us anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the relatively stringent upgrade requirements for Windows 11 remain a cause of controversy, as folks with relatively modern processors are left out in the cold (and PCs without TPM functionality, of course).

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).