But I suppose Microsoft could change its mind about system requirements for future ISOs, too. I just reformatted my machine with the Windows 10 2H21 ISO, and I barely had any patching to do afterwards. (Admittedly, the generic drivers that ship with Windows are often good enough.)įeature updates are probably less of a big deal: if you’re the kind of person who would install a Windows 11 ISO on your computer to begin with, you can probably download a newer ISO the next time there’s a major Windows update that you want, and do an in-place-install. Windows 10 wowed me from day one by seamlessly working with my aging laptop, so it’d suck if that’s not the case anymore. It’s not just security updates at stake, by the way: If you’re unwilling or unable to replace your older-than-Intel 8th-Gen-CPU, Windows 11 could theoretically be an operating system where you go back to the days of manually downloading driver updates for all your hardware, something I haven’t needed to think about for years. Microsoft declined to clarify things further at this time, which suggests the company’s perfectly happy for us to assume this is a genuine threat. Better to underpromise and overdeliver.īut it’s also possible Microsoft genuinely does mean to withhold patches at some point in the future - potentially even at launch. If I were in Microsoft’s shoes, I might just want to discourage people from thinking I was offering a warranty and technical support for every possible PC configuration under the sun to avoid potential legal headaches down the road. It’s hard to imagine that Microsoft wouldn’t issue critical security patches, when we’ve often seen the company extend support and offer the occasional free patch even after it’s shelved an operating system for good. It’s quite possible this is just a cover-your-ass measure on Microsoft’s part.

Windows 10 has ruined my computer