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.