Windows 11 ships on October 5 (but without Android support)

Microsoft announces it will start offering Windows 11 on October 5. It will be sold separately and be offered for free to Windows 10 users with a compatible system. The minimum system requirements of Windows 11 are quite a bit higher than Windows 10, so a lot of users will not be able to make the upgrade. In particular, Microsoft's decision to only support newer processor generations and require TPM 2.0 means millions will be cut-off from an upgrade path to Windows 10.

The software giant believes most qualifying PCs will be offered the free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022.

The free upgrade to Windows 11 starts on October 5 and will be phased and measured with a focus on quality. Following the tremendous learnings from Windows 10, we want to make sure we’re providing you with the best possible experience. That means new eligible devices will be offered the upgrade first. The upgrade will then roll out over time to in-market devices based on intelligence models that consider hardware eligibility, reliability metrics, age of device and other factors that impact the upgrade experience. We expect all eligible devices to be offered the free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022. If you have a Windows 10 PC that’s eligible for the upgrade, Windows Update will let you know when it’s available. You can also check to see if Windows 11 is ready for your device by going to Settings > Windows Update and select Check for updates.

Microsoft also revealed that the first release of Windows 11 will lack support for Android apps. This feature will be rolled out later, in cooperation with the Amazon Appstore.