The Great Windows 11 Dipsy-Doo (Premium)

When it comes to enthusiasts looking to upgrade unsupported PCs to Windows 11, Microsoft is playing games with our hearts. And that’s too bad: this should have been a slam-dunk for Microsoft, what we sometimes call a “dipsy-doo” in basketball.

I assume most of you are familiar with what’s happened to date, but here’s a quick recap. After a series of leaks, Microsoft announced Windows 11 in late June, surprising us all. But the Windows 11 reveal was tarnished in part by stricter than expected hardware requirements and, even worse, poor communications, a Microsoft hallmark. The communication issues were particularly confounding because the software giant actually prebriefed the press and some bloggers and never fully explained just how strict those requirements were, let alone why. And so we started this little episode with bad information. Thanks, Microsoft.

Since then, Microsoft has done a better job of explaining itself. But it also threw out an olive leaf to enthusiasts who were upset about the Windows 11 hardware requirements, which stipulated an 8th-generation or newer Intel Core chipset (or the AMD equivalent) and TPM 2.0, among other things: It would let Windows Insiders test Windows 11 on older hardware and see what happened. If it worked out, maybe it would loosen the requirements.

I was positive that Microsoft would do so and that the idiocy in which it had engaged to date was mostly a PR stunt aimed at getting the community to accept the hardware requirements it really wanted: 7th-generation Intel Core or newer and TPM 1.2. This past Friday, however, Microsoft dashed by overly positive expectations and announced that it was sticking with its original requirements.

But Microsoft did make two concessions. It is allowing in a tiny subset of 7th-generation Intel Core-based hardware, including the weird chipset at the heart of its own Surface Studio 2. And it would allow enthusiasts to upgrade unsupported PCs to Windows 11 via install media they created on their own using Microsoft’s download site instead of using the normal Windows Update method. These PCs would be unsupported, we were told—meaning that users were “on their own” if something went wrong—but would continue getting cumulative/security updates via Windows Update going forward, along with the rest of the user base.

I thought this sounded fantastic and that this plan represented that rare instance in which Microsoft was able to please all parties involved. Customers on newer hardware will get Windows 11 for free, businesses that want to stick with Windows 10 can do so for five more years and not need to buy new hardware, and that tiny percentage of the enthusiast part of the community that has unsupported hardware but still wants to upgrade to Windows 11 would be able to do so. They are, after all, technical enough to handle doing this. I was prepared to write an editorial today praising Microsoft for doing the right thing.

Today, however, Microsoft has settled right back into that same terrible place in which it too often finds itself. Thanks to its terrible ability to communicate, the software giant is again pushing uncertainty on its customers by revealing, after the fact, and via an even smaller number of publications than before, that the information we all published on Friday was only half of the story.

PC World was the first to ask Microsoft for clarification on its promise to support unsupported PCs running Windows 11. And Microsoft told that publication that “unsupported PCs running Windows 11 won’t be entitled to receive updates via Windows Update. That means, Microsoft added, that unsupported Windows PCs might not include security and driver updates, either.”

Um. What.

The Verge then followed that up with a painfully similar report in which Microsoft has told it, too, and after the fact, that “unsupported PCs won’t be entitled to receive Windows Updates, and that even security and driver updates may be withheld.”

Now, “may be withheld” and “might not” don’t mean “won’t,” and I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this after-the-fact weaseling is both purposeful and planned, and that it is tied in some way to some legal requirements that kick in if Microsoft explicitly goes on record and says that it “will” support customers with PCs that do not meet its requirements. And, honestly, I really do think that it’s going to shake out like that. No, they’re not supported, wink, wink. And, seriously, see what’s waiting for you in Windows Update.

But this kind of uncertainty isn’t just unfair to its customers, not to mention the enthusiasts who love Windows most of all, it’s a mockery of the goodwill it engendered less than 24 hours earlier. Here was Microsoft, claiming to take decisive steps to protect its Windows users well into the future while simultaneously telling its most technical users that they’re adult enough to come along for the ride on ostensibly unsupported hardware.

Today, alas, the story is quite different. We literally have no idea where Microsoft really stands on this issue, and now we have to, what? Just wait and see how it goes?

For the love of God, Microsoft. Get it right for once. And on a more personal note, if you pre-brief press and bloggers about your plans, don’t just tell them part of the truth. Tell them the truth. All of it. That way, we can then communicate what’s really happening accurately. When you do this kind of thing, you’re not just not letting us do our jobs, you’re actively working to undermine us.