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Microsoft on Tuesday announced that Windows 11 will start to become available through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 in India.
New pre-installed Windows 11 devices have begun rolling out from partners including ASUS, HP, and Lenovo with more coming soon from partners like Acer and Dell.
Windows will inform the users of the update if they have a Windows 10 PC that’s eligible for the upgrade. They can also check to see if Windows 11 is ready for their device by going to Settings > Windows Update and selecting ‘Check for updates.’
New eligible devices will be offered the upgrade first. With the PC Health Check app soon, users can check to see if their current PC will be eligible to upgrade. Eligible devices will have to fulfil certain hardware requirements.
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These include a 64-bit 1GHz processor or faster, at least 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. The device will also require a DirectX 12 compatible graphics are and support for TPM 2.0.
“Over time, we will make Windows 11 available to existing (in-market) devices based on hardware eligibility, reliability metrics and other factors that impact the upgrade experience,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “We expect all eligible devices to be offered the free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022,” it further said.
The tech giant first unveiled the operating system in June this year. It was then made available for the Windows Insider community with the first Insider Preview Build released in June. Windows 11 brings about a major design overhaul, an increased focus on gaming and multi-tasking along with changes to the Microsoft Store with a focus on creators and developers.
The latest rollout includes some of the most notable features of Windows 11 including the new and updated UI that puts the Start menu at the centre, updated taskbar,Chat from Microsoft Teams, overhauled Microsoft Store, Snap Layouts, Snap Groups, and Desktops along with Widgets, among other features.
It also focuses on the PC gaming experiences bringing tech improvements including Auto HDR and Direct Storage from its Xbox consoles to its OS. It will also give users access to the Xbox app to play great games with Xbox Game Pass.
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DirectX 12 Ultimate can enable better, immersive graphics at high frame rates. It also brings DirectStorage for faster load times and more detailed game worlds. For accessibility, it offers assistive technologies like Narrator, Magnifier, Closed Captions and Windows Speech Recognition to support users.
October 4, 2021, also marks the start of the 24-month lifecycle for the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11. Starting today, organisations can also begin moving to Windows 11 on powerful PCs and through the cloud with Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktop.
For customers who are using a PC that will not be eligible for upgrade, and who aren’t ready to transition to a new device, they can continue using Windows 10. Microsoft will support Windows 10 through October 14, 2025. It has also recently announced that the next feature update to Windows 10 is coming later this year.
