Google Starts Checking If Your PC Can Switch To Windows 11
Windows 10 users — it’s time to move.
As much as Microsoft would like PC owners to use its Edge browser, that’s just not the case. Chrome has five times as many Windows users as Edge, which makes Google’s browser the de facto default for Windows users around the world.
That makes Google’s confirmation that Chrome is now checking if a PC “is capable of being upgraded to Win11” interesting. As spotted by Windows Latest, this data will help “influence Google’s decision to support the browser in future.”
Around half of all Windows users still run Windows 10, even as Windows 11 overtakes its market share for the first time. Those Windows 10 users divide into around 400 million PCs eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 and around 240 million that can’t.
Those numbers are critical. As I’ve commented before, Microsoft’s recent decision to extend security support for Windows 10, even on PCs eligible to upgrade, risks slowing down the transition to the more secure Windows 11, delaying the cliff edge 12 months.
It would be better to force all PCs that can upgrade to do so, and only extend support for those that can’t, giving those users a year’s grace to buy new hardware.
Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10
On that note, Windows 10 holdouts will have see recent reports into Microsoft “quietly downloading and installing” the KB5001716 update on Windows 10 PCs.
As Neowin points out, “the tech giant pushes this update out whenever it wishes to force-install a new feature update onto PCs.”
Microsoft says that “after this update is installed, Windows may periodically display a notification informing you of problems that may prevent Windows Update from keeping your device up-to-date and protected against current threats.”
This includes notifying you “that your device is currently running a version of Windows that has reached the end of its support lifecycle, [or] does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for the currently installed version of Windows.”
All told, any Windows 10 users expecting a quiet ride until October 2026 after taking Microsoft’s free 12-month support extension could be in a for a rude awakening. Those warnings will not stop. Put mopre simply — if you can upgrade, you should.