Microsoft Tests New Warnings for Windows 11 PCs Not Meeting Minimum Specs

Microsoft has started testing new ways to warn Windows 11 users that they’re running the OS on unsupported hardware. In recent Windows 11 Insider builds, Twitter user Albacore recently spotted a warning message in the System page of the Windows 11 Settings app telling users that “System requirements not met.”

Now, Windows Latest is reporting that Microsoft has also introduced desktop watermarks displaying the same message on recent Windows 11 Insider builds. The warning message can be seen right above the Insider build number in the bottom right corner of the screen.

This new desktop watermark isn’t as visible as the semi-transparent message Windows 10 and Windows 11 users can see when using the OS without a valid license. Anyway, these warning messages on the desktop and the Windows 11 Settings app could remain experiments, and they may or may not ship in a future Windows 11 update.

Microsoft caused quite a stir last year with its minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, which is the first version of Windows to require 8th gen Intel Core CPUs or newer, as well as security features such as Secure Boot and a TPM 2.0 chip. While it’s still possible the manually install the OS on a PC with unsupported hardware, Microsoft doesn’t recommend it as these devices will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including security updates.

If you may think that the strict hardware requirements for Windows 11 would have left many Windows 10 users on the sidelines, Microsoft said last month that this wasn’t the case. Since the launch of Windows 11 in October, we have seen strong demand and preference for Windows 11 with people accepting the upgrade offer to Windows 11 at twice the rate we saw for Windows 10,” announced Microsoft’s Chief Hardware Office Panos Panay.