Microsoft have started warning Windows Insiders testing Windows 11 on unsupported devices that they will have to perform a clean install of Windows 10. Back in June Microsoft said that device that didn’t meet the minimum requirements but where given an exception would have to go back to Windows 10 once Windows 11 ships. Today Microsoft are sending out notifications to Windows Insiders running Windows 11 on unsupported devices that they will need to go back to Windows 10:

Some PCs in the Dev Channel do not have an option to switch channels as they were given an exception to install Windows 11 preview builds as outlined in our blog post here on June 24th (the red column in the chart). These PCs do not meet the minimum hardware requirements for previewing Windows 11 builds and will not receive new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel going forward.
Based on our data, you have a PC that was given that exception. This PC must clean install back to Windows 10 with the media (ISOs) that we provide and can then join the Release Preview Channel to preview Windows 10 updates.
Please review the message in your Windows Update Settings to learn more.

I have couple of machines currently running Windows 11 that have the message in Settings, Windows Update. They will need Windows 10 clean installing from an ISO, wiping all the data. I have seen many people getting upset about this, but Microsoft did say this would be the case in the June blog post.

I have a couple devices that don’t meet the spec but don’t get the warning, they just warn of issues and bugs.

The dev channel is soon to get new builds of Windows 11 that won’t be the version that ships October 5th. Only beta and release preview will have the shipping version of Windows 11.

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