Get ready for Windows11
Barry Collins shows how to prepare your PC for the first new version of Windows in five years
N ew versions of Windows don’t come along all that often these days. Indeed, if you’d taken Microsoft at its word a few years ago, Windows 11 should never have arrived at all.
But here we are, with a new version of Windows on the near horizon, with Windows 10 users set to qualify for a free upgrade to the new operating system. Before you hit that Upgrade button in Windows Update, however, you should take this once-in-a-computing-generation opportunity to get your PCs in order and ready to take full advantage of the new OS.
First, however, it’s worth considering if you should – or can – upgrade to Windows 11. We’ll explore the pros and cons of upgrading a Windows 10 PC and dive into the detailed system requirements to help you work out whether your PC is even up to the job.
We’ll walk through the process of getting your PC ready for Windows 11 by clearing space and trimming the fat from your system to make the upgrade as smooth and fast as possible. We’ll also reveal how to avoid the upgrade blockers that might prevent you being offered
Windows 11, even if your PC ticks all the system requirements.
We’ll then run you through how to take a full system backup ahead of the upgrade, so that if anything does go wrong during the process, you can put your PC back to how it was. And, finally, we’ll talk about when you can expect to see Windows 11 coming down the pipe.
Should you even upgrade?
Before we get our teeth into preparing your PC for Windows 11, there’s a question you need to ask yourself: is it worth upgrading this PC in the first place?
The pull to have the latest version of Windows is undeniably strong, especially if you’re already running Windows 10 and qualify for the free upgrade. Indeed, if you’re running Windows 10, you’re going to be nagged by Microsoft to upgrade at some point.
However, there are strong reasons for staying put, especially if none of the new features are going to make a fundamental difference to your dayto-day computing ( see “What’s in Windows 11 that’s not in 10?”).
The best reason for staying put is not rocking the boat. We’ll come to the minimum and somewhat controversial requirements in the next section, but even if your PC does manage to tick those boxes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in for a smooth experience.
There’s always the chance that something will go wrong during the update process and you will end up
with a borked installation. Microsoft has got much better at smoothing the Windows upgrade path in recent years – it’s nothing like as hairy as it was in the days of Windows 98 or XP – but with gazillions of different combinations of hardware and software out there, there’s a genuine chance your PC will be one of those that trips up. No OS update comes without risks.
If your PC is on the cusp of the minimum hardware requirements, it’s an even harder judgement call. Development of Windows 10 is effectively complete now. There might be a few new features added here and there – such as the updated Microsoft Store – but you can be confident that if your PC is capable of handling Windows 10 now, it will do so indefinitely.