Microsoft is speeding up Windows 11 rollout after first phase

Microsoft says it is “advancing the pace of rollout” for its Windows 11 operating system (OS). According to the company, the first phase of Windows 11’s rollout has seen a “high rate of positive update experiences”, and the company is hence going to roll out the operating system to users faster than originally announced. Microsoft made the announcement through Windows 11’s official health dashboard, which tracks known issues and bugs.

Unlike Windows 10’s release over five years ago, Microsoft had said Windows 11’s roll out will be slower. In order to ensure that Windows 11 performs well on all devices, the company was using its internal telemetry to prioritize the devices best suited for it first. As a result, many devices that met the minimum requirements for Windows 11 would have to wait in line to get updates.

“We will continue to train our machine learning model throughout the phased rollout to deliver a smooth upgrade experience. We will also provide status updates as we further increase availability over time, the company notified on its official website,” the company said.

Windows 11 also changed the security requirements for PCs, making trusted platform modules (TPM) compulsory for PCs running the OS. TPM chips are special chips that enhance security by storing sensitive cryptographic data like fingerprints and encryption keys. While Microsoft does allow laptops and PCs without these chips to download Windows 11 manually, they were left out of the automatic rollout schedule.

The enhanced pace of rollout should be especially helpful for IT teams managing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) infrastructures in their organizations, as they will be able to adopt newer security standards and apps faster.

Windows 11’s official rollout to PCs started on October 5 this year, and the company had said that it expects all Windows 10 PCs to be running on the new OS by the middle of 2022. Microsoft will also continue supporting Windows 10 till October 2025.