Windows 11 is designed to bring you closer to what you love and is releasing at a time when the PC is playing an even more central role in the way we connect, create and play. When we made the decision on where to set the minimum system requirements for Window 11, we focused on three principles to guide our thinking to help ensure a great user experience:
If you are interested in understanding more about our minimum system requirements and how these principles helped guide our decision-making, please see this blog that provides a more detailed explanation of our approach.
Here Are Some More Details About The Windows 9 Activation System
We know that some customers will want an easy-to-use process for determining if their PC meets the minimum system requirements for Windows 11 and is eligible for the upgrade. To help with this, we are providing the PC Health Check app for Windows 10 PCs. In addition to diagnostic checks, there is a push-button simple way to check upgrade eligibility for Windows 11. Once Windows 11 is released, Windows Update will also offer a way to assess upgrade eligibility. You will be able to access this from Settings > Update & Security. These options are designed for customer PCs that are not managed by an IT administrator. If your PC is managed by an IT administrator, you should check with them on options for assessing eligibility and upgrading to Windows 11.
Customers should assess their application infrastructure before migrating any server applications. They can learn more about the recommended process in the Azure Migration Center where you will learn how to leverage services like Azure Migrate to complete a readiness assessment including a cost estimate to run the application infrastructure in Azure. For further questions, work with your Microsoft partner, Microsoft Services, or your Account team to evaluate application readiness.
**For clients covered by Extended Security Updates, the latest released version of ConfigMgr (current branch) can deploy and install any security updates released. Client management features not related to patch management or operating system deployment will no longer be tested on the operating systems covered under by Extended Security Updates. While they may continue to function in some capacity for a period, there are no guarantees. Microsoft recommends upgrading or migrating to current operating systems to receive client management support.
On the general availability build of Windows 10 (the original release), to activate and generate the "digital entitlement" for Windows 10, the operating system must have first been installed as an in-place upgrade. During the free upgrade, a genuineticket.xml file is created in the background and the system's motherboard details are registered with a Microsoft Product Activation server. Once installed, the operating system can be reinstalled on that particular system via normal means without a product key, and the system's license will automatically be detected via online activation - in essence, the Microsoft Product Activation Server will remember the system's motherboard and give it the green light for product re-activation.[170][185][186] Because of installation issues with Upgrade Only installs, the November Update (version 1511) included additional activation mechanisms. This build treated Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 product keys as Windows 10 product keys, meaning they could be entered during installation to activate the free license, without the need to upgrade first to "activate" the hardware with Microsoft's activation servers.[187] For major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 OEM product keys are embedded in the firmware of the motherboard and if the correct edition of Windows 10 is present on the installation media, they are automatically inputted during installation. Since the release of the Fall Creators Update (version 1709), Microsoft decided to release multi-edition installation media, to alleviate installation and product activation issues users experienced because of accidentally installing the wrong edition of Windows 10.
During upgrades, Windows 10 licenses are not tied directly to a product key. Instead, the license status of the system's current installation of Windows is migrated, and a "Digital license" (known as "Digital entitlement" in version 1511 or earlier) is generated during the activation process, which is bound to the hardware information collected during the process. If Windows 10 is reinstalled cleanly and there have not been any significant hardware changes since installation (such as a motherboard change), the online activation process will automatically recognize the system's digital entitlement if no product key is entered during installations. However, unique product keys are still distributed within retail copies of Windows 10. As with previous non-volume-licensed variants of Windows, significant hardware changes will invalidate the digital entitlement, and require Windows to be re-activated.[170][185]
Up to August 2016, Windows 10 usage was increasing, with it then plateauing,[297] while eventually in 2018, it became more popular than Windows 7[298][299] (though Windows 7 was still more used in some countries in Asia and Africa in 2019). As of March 2020[update], the operating system is running on over a billion devices, reaching the goal set by Microsoft two years after the initial deadline.[22]
On January 21, 2016, Microsoft was sued in small claims court by a user whose computer had attempted to upgrade to Windows 10 without her consent shortly after the release of the operating system. The upgrade failed, and her computer was left in a broken state thereafter, which disrupted the ability to run her travel agency. The court ruled in favor of the user and awarded her $10,000 in damages, but Microsoft appealed. However, in May 2016, Microsoft dropped the appeal and chose to pay the damages. Shortly after the suit was reported on by the Seattle Times, Microsoft confirmed it was updating the GWX software once again to add more explicit options for opting out of a free Windows 10 upgrade;[349][350][346] the final notification was a full-screen pop-up window notifying users of the impending end of the free upgrade offer, and contained "Remind me later", "Do not notify me again" and "Notify me three more times" as options.[351]
Rock Paper Shotgun writer Alec Meer argued that Microsoft's intent for this data collection lacked transparency, stating that "there is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different settings screens and an external website constitutes 'real transparency'."[353] Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech wrote that "the company that brought us the 'Scroogled' campaign now hoovers up your data in ways that would make Google jealous."[283] However, it was also pointed out that the requirement for such vast usage of customer data had become a norm, citing the increased reliance on cloud computing and other forms of external processing, as well as similar data collection requirements for services on mobile devices such as Google Now and Siri.[353][356] In August 2015, Russian politician Nikolai Levichev called for Windows 10 to be banned from use within the Russian government, as it sends user data to servers in the United States. The Russian government had passed a federal law requiring all online services to store the data of Russian users on servers within the country by September 2016 or be blocked.[357][358] Writing for ZDNet, Ed Bott said that the lack of complaints by businesses about privacy in Windows 10 indicated "how utterly normal those privacy terms are in 2015."[359] In a Computerworld editorial, Preston Gralla said that "the kind of information Windows 10 gathers is no different from what other operating systems gather. But Microsoft is held to a different standard than other companies".[360]
The Microsoft Services agreement reads that the company's online services may automatically "download software updates or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorized hardware peripheral devices." Critics interpreted this statement as implying that Microsoft would scan for and delete unlicensed software installed on devices running Windows 10.[361] However, others pointed out that this agreement was specifically for Microsoft online services such as Microsoft account, Office 365, Skype, as well as Xbox Live, and that the offending passage most likely referred to digital rights management on Xbox consoles and first-party games, and not plans to police pirated video games installed on Windows 10 PCs.[361][362] Despite this, some torrent trackers announced plans to block Windows 10 users, also arguing that the operating system could send information to anti-piracy groups that are affiliated with Microsoft.[363] Writing about these allegations, Ed Bott of ZDNet compared Microsoft's privacy policy to Apple's and Google's and concluded that he "[didn't] see anything that looks remotely like Big Brother."[359] Columnist Kim Komando argued that "Microsoft might in the future run scans and disable software or hardware it sees as a security threat", consistent with the Windows 10 update policy.[364]
But lately simply plugging in a cable in the second/other nic on a workstation that was activated and working and removing it later can cause activation to fail from there on or deactivation can also fail with the servers saying they do not know this device while MC still activates. Moving cables and network settings between the nics sometimes helps. Normally I always see the device ID change in Avid link when doing so, but lately this can also stop as if the device ID shown is cached. More often then not activation will keep failing from there on and support needs to be asked for a manual de-activation which they always do including deletion of the usual files. 2ff7e9595c
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