Users report unwanted Windows 11 upgrade offers on incompatible Windows 10 PCs

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Editor's take: Over the past few years, Redmond has increasingly forced updates and security patches onto Windows users. Now, the company is reportedly trying to boost the number of Windows 11 installations by pushing the free upgrade from Windows 10 more aggressively than some users would like.

Microsoft has scheduled the end of mainstream support for Windows 10 for October 14, 2025, and that date is rapidly approaching. The company continues to offer a free upgrade to Windows 11, but it should theoretically be unavailable to customers with incompatible PCs. Yet some of those users report receiving the upgrade prompts anyway.

One such case was recently described by Günter Born, a German user who documented the issue on his blog. Born owns a Dell Latitude 7490 notebook running Windows 10 22H2, which should be compatible with Windows 11. However, he deliberately chose to avoid the new OS by disabling the Trusted Platform Module in the system's UEFI firmware.

Since Windows 11's minimum requirements include an enabled TPM, the upgrade prompt should, in principle, never appear. Yet Born claims he continues to receive it "every few months" despite having no intention of adopting Microsoft's newer operating system.

Born is not the only one experiencing this frustrating issue. He shared the story of a system administrator who contacted him in March 2025 after several of his company's client machines were suddenly upgraded to Windows 11 24H2. The company manages updates through Windows Server Update Services, which should, in theory, prevent unauthorized installations.

Yet for unknown reasons, the Windows 11 upgrade bypassed the WSUS block and installed itself on client PCs without asking for permission. Additionally, a user named Georg told Born he was repeatedly offered the upgrade on his Lenovo IdeaPad S145-15IWL notebook despite having disabled the TPM.

Why is Windows Update pushing so aggressively to install Windows 11 on otherwise functional Windows 10 systems? Some speculate that bugs in Windows Update could be to blame, while others believe Microsoft may be attempting to inflate Windows 11 market-share figures.

For now, users receiving unwanted upgrade prompts can simply ignore the message and continue using Windows 10, particularly if their PCs do not meet Windows 11's official system requirements.

Permalink to story:

Users report unwanted Windows 11 upgrade offers on incompatible Windows 10 PCs

 

[brucek]

On the "offered despite TPM disabled in BIOS", I'm going to bet the update code is checking something else directly -- I.e., the motherboard or CPU -- and does not check for the actual presence of the TPM when those checks already returned positive on a list of known compatible models.

The overrode enterprise controls is another story but then again if this was truly happening frequently I'd imagine it would get fixed. The article contains a single secondhand account.

 

[XP437]

I have a perfectly fine pc for windows 11 but I am still on 10 because I hate 11

 

[DrSuess]

I have a perfectly fine pc for windows 11 but I am still on 10 because I hate 11

I have a perfectly fine Win 11 pc because an OS is a tool I don't really care what it looks like as long as it does the functions I need it too. I am equally fine on MacOS, or Linux it doesn't really matter to me. Its easy for me to adapt to any UI or even a command line terminal.

 

[Rudyduu]

"...a Dell Latitude 7490 notebook running Windows 10 22H2...However, he deliberately chose to avoid the new OS by disabling the Trusted Platform Module..." Why would him disabling the TPM keep him from getting notification about upgrading to 11 on hardware the supports it? Why would the user want to be on an OS that will no longer get security updates? Why do we care about one user's issue with getting a notification every few months? If tens of thousands of users on pre-TPMS equiped systems were getting the notification, then you'd have a story. This story is trying to generate drama where there isn't any.

 

[wiyosaya]

What a surprise. /s

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

All this crap M$FT does is why I switched to MacOS for my primary system. I still unfortunately have to use Winblows at work and for some gaming, but otherwise I avoid it like the plague. MacOS isn't great, but at least apple isn't forcing crap down your throat like M$FT does. The only thing I miss is File Explorer, which is way better than Finder. Finder is junk, frankly.

 

[Hotlynx16]

On the "offered despite TPM disabled in BIOS", I'm going to bet the update code is checking something else directly -- I.e., the motherboard or CPU -- and does not check for the actual presence of the TPM when those checks already returned positive on a list of known compatible models.

The overrode enterprise controls is another story but then again if this was truly happening frequently I'd imagine it would get fixed. The article contains a single secondhand account.

I have a 2023 build with an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and I turned off the TPM in the Bios but I still get offered updates to windows 11!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"...a Dell Latitude 7490 notebook running Windows 10 22H2...However, he deliberately chose to avoid the new OS by disabling the Trusted Platform Module..." Why would him disabling the TPM keep him from getting notification about upgrading to 11 on hardware the supports it? Why would the user want to be on an OS that will no longer get security updates? Why do we care about one user's issue with getting a notification every few months? If tens of thousands of users on pre-TPMS equiped systems were getting the notification, then you'd have a story. This story is trying to generate drama where there isn't any.

Because TPM is one of the hardware requirements and if you have it disabled the update should also stop, with an error that your TPM is not supported.