Windows 11 was released officially by Microsoft on 5th October 2021. The successor to Windows 11. Microsoft stated that it was a free update to windows 10 users and they would be prompted later or earlier the next year to download the new version of Windows. Provided they had the machine capable of running it.

Microsoft provided The PC Health Check to help you check if your PC is ready for Windows 11. It also provides feedback and guides you through.

Hardware Requirements

• RAM - 4 Gigabytes (GB) or greater.
• Processor - 1GHz or higher with 2 or more cores on a compatible 64 bit processor. Microsoft provided the list of compatible CPUs.
• Storage - 64GB or greater
• Graphics card - Compatible with DirectX 12 or later, with a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0
• System firmware - UEFI, Secure Boot capable Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0
• Display - High definition (720p) display, 9" or greater monitor, 8 bits per color channel.

OS requirements

Eligible Windows 10 devices must be on version 2004 or later, and have installed the September 14, 2021 or later security update, in order to upgrade directly to Windows 11.

Other Feature specific requirements

• Auto HDR - requires an HDR capable monitor
• Bitlocker to Go - requires a USB flash drive.
• 5G support - requires capable modem
• Client Hyper-V - requires a processor with second-level address translation (SLAT) capabilities.
• DirectStorage - requires an NVMe SSD to store and run games that use the Standard NVM Express Controller Driver and a DirectX12 GPU with Shader Model 6.0 support.
• DirectX12 Ultimate - available with supported games and graphics chips.
• Windows Hello - requires a camera configures for near infrared (IR) imaging or fingerprint reader for biometric authentication.
• Windows Projection - requires a display adapter that supports Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0 and a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct.

Virtual machine support

• Generation : 2 +
• Storage - 64GB or greater
• Security - Secure Boot capable, virtual TPM enabled.
• Memory - 4GB or greater
• Processor - Two or more virtual Processors