It's official! Windows 11 starts rolling out on October 5th

There has been endless talk about this operating system, ever since Microsoft announced it a few months ago.

Today, we finally know when Windows 11 is going to become available to the masses, as a complete OS.

So, starting with the 5th of October, the free upgrade will begin rolling out to eligible Windows 10 PCs and other devices that come pre-loaded with Windows 11 will start to become available for purchase.

Windows 11 has an official release date

Like many Windows upgrades in the past, this one will be available in phases too. New eligible devices will be offered the upgrade first, and then Windows 11 will become available for more in-market devices in the weeks and months following October 5th.

Following the tremendous learnings from Windows 10, we want to make sure we’re providing you with the best possible experience. We expect all eligible devices to be offered the free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022.

On existing Windows 10 devices, Windows Update will let people know when the upgrade is available for Windows 11.

You can also check to see if your device is eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade through Windows Update, or Microsoft’s dedicated PC Health Check app, which is currently in preview.

But while the OS launches on October 5th, not all of the announced features will be available right away. Microsoft is bringing Android apps, in partnership with Amazon and Intel, but this feature won’t be there with the release.

A preview of Android apps on the new operating system will become available for Windows Insiders in the coming months, suggesting that it likely won’t roll out to all Windows 11 users until 2022.

The Redmond-based tech company also clarified its minimum system requirements for Windows 11 last week, but also revealed a workaround for those who don’t meet them. 

As a matter of fact, you can install Windows 11 on any hardware using an ISO method, as long as the device has a 64-bit 1GHz processor with two or more cores, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a TPM 1.2 chip.

However, the catch is that your PC will be in an unsupported state, which means you will not receive any Windows updates whatsoever. Yes, this also means no security updates.

So, if the gadget you are using isn’t fully compatible with Windows 11, Microsoft is still supporting Windows 10 until October 14th, 2025.

Also worth mentioning is that a 21H2 update is arriving for Windows 10 users later this year that includes GPU compute support in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Windows Hello improvements, and WPA3 H2E Wi-Fi security support.

Are you excited about Windows 11 coming out on October 5th? Let us know in the comments section below.