Learn about the brand new features and improvements in Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 11, unveiled on Thursday, June 24, 2021 and available since October 5, 2021.
- Downloads: 15
- Release date: 20/09/2022
- Author: Microsoft
- License: Commercial license
- Categories :
Operating System - Operating system: Windows
Windows 11 Professional is the business and education version of the brand new Windows 11 operating system. Discover its advanced features.
- Downloads: 26
- Release date: 20/09/2022
- Author: Microsoft
- License: Commercial license
- Categories :
Operating System - Operating system: Windows
To answer this question, let’s take a detour through marketing theories. Have you ever heard of FUD? This acronym, which translates into French as “fear, uncertainty and doubt”, has been around for a long time, but it was popularized in the 1970s to describe the way the giant IBM discouraged its customers from considering competing products.
Today, FUD has become a classic marketing technique used when there is no valid technical argument against the choice the customer is considering. However, it is strange to see Microsoft using it, and thus confusing, to discourage customers from installing one of its own products. In the words of the American giant: installing Windows 11 on an unsupported PC is not recommended and can lead to compatibility problems. “If you proceed with the installation of Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and will not be able to receive updates. Damage to your PC due to lack of compatibility is not covered by the manufacturer’s warranty,” Microsoft says.
Translate: this doesn’t really say that Microsoft will cut off your access to updates, but simply that you are no longer “entitled” to them. This word is revealing from Microsoft, which declines any legal responsibility without actually saying what it will do.
More fear than harm
In practice, it would be difficult for Microsoft to configure its update servers to reject PC requests based on such detailed configuration information. This would risk trapping customers with valid installations, and it would unnecessarily anger customers who otherwise have a perfectly satisfactory experience with Windows 11. Instead, this language is a way to convince customers to trade in their old PCs for new ones, thus choosing the option that puts new revenue in the pockets of Microsoft and its third-party manufacturing partners.
This kind of confusion is not unprecedented. In the days leading up to the launch of Windows 10, Windows skeptics were convinced that Microsoft would pull the rug out from under the updates based on confusing language about “supported device life.”
One Windows expert even claimed that Microsoft would start charging Windows 10 customers for updates within two years… which ultimately turned out to be a false alarm. It’s possible, of course, that a future Windows update could cause performance and reliability issues on older PCs, but the idea of Microsoft punishing customers for following a documented procedure for rolling out the update seems highly unlikely.