Be warned — Microsoft’s campaign to push Windows 10 holdouts over to Windows 11 is now getting very serious. Yes, we have seen plenty of warnings and nags, but the campaign also now includes some quieter, more critical steps. And for 400 million users, it’s time to decide before it’s too late. Your options are suddenly being cut.
The good news for Microsoft is that this is working — to an extent at least. We saw a significant uptick in Windows 11 upgrades in January after a couple of months of Windows 10 recovering market share at the end of last year. But that might be down to a hint from Microsoft that free Windows 11 upgrades were on a deadline.
While the Windows-maker withdrew the document suggesting a deadline or cutoff, the free upgrade is an option for Windows 10 users, and it’s entirely possible that this offer will fall away when Windows 10 reaches end-of-life in October. It’s not clear.
What is clear, though, is that while an estimated 400 million Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 given its hardware hurdles, there are around that same number again (estimated) who cannot. And for those users, there is the option of a 12-month extended support plan for $30 but then it really will be the end of the road.
There have been a raft of workarounds, tips and tricks to get around the hardware hurdles, and coverage of these has unsurprisingly increased in recent months. But the bad news for Windows users on older PCs is that those workarounds are falling away.
As I updated last week, Microsoft has removed its instructions on tweaking the Windows Registry from an official support document, seemingly taking that option off the table, and now it has done the same with another favored workaround.
Last year I reported on Flyby11, which “offers all ‘working methods to bypass the restrictions for installing Windows 11 24H2 on unsupported hardware,’ per its developer. “I wrote the tool in about an hour for a good friend, just to make a quick solution for a specific problem they were facing. Since it turned out to be quite useful, I thought I’d share it with the community as well.”
The idea behind Flyby11 is to automate as much of the hacked upgrade process as it can, meaning inexperienced users can make the switch without playing with settings and processes they don’t understand and don’t really want to touch.
Well, it was then and now. As Neowin discovered, “Microsoft [has blocked [the] Windows 11 24H2 system requirements free typing types application as prospective malware. “It appears that the app’s recent update “incorporated a registry setting that Microsoft itself once hosted in its official Windows 11 installation guide, although the corporate probably needs it in this regard. “In itself it is not a problem. But Neowin warns that “the developer of Flyby11 added that Microsoft Defender flags the app as a PUA or an unwanted prospective app. “If its download and installation is reported, it will possibly stop depending on how secure your device and network are.
This crusade is not going to do that. I warned last year that solutions may fall as Microsoft begins to narrow down those options. The net result is that we still don’t know what will happen as October approaches. Are we going to see many millions of PCs from the stand, or is there a hasty plan in the works?
For those who can update, you deserve to do it before October. This means that there are no prices of $ 30 or threat that loose updates are interrupted through the end of the life of Windows 10. For those who do not have the right team, it is possibly time to take Microsoft in its impulse so that 2025 Be the year of the Windows PC soda 11. Anyway, don’t be if you end up being your rescue option; This is not the value of the threat.
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