Millions of Windows users hit with stark new warning
Republished on December 13 with a new Windows security warning as Microsoft’s AI is caught capturing sensitive information that it shouldn’t.
The confusion around Microsoft updates continues. Just as it releases the last Patch Tuesday of 2024, with a new zero-day amongst 71 vulnerabilities, it also warns 400 million users they risk losing access to future security fixes if they update their PCs.
A week ago, Microsoft appeared to shutdown avenues to moving to Windows 11 on PCs that didn’t meet the TPM 2.0 hardware hurdle. “With Windows 10 end of support approaching,” it said, “it’s important to revisit a key minimum system requirement for Windows 11: Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0.”
But then the company almost immediately appeared to reverse course, opening the door to updates on machines that don’t meet a hurdle it describes as “a necessity.”
As reported by PC World, “Microsoft is now allowing Windows 11 on older, incompatible PCs. Despite years of warning, Not even a week ago, Microsoft doubled down on its policy that requires PCs to have TPM 2.0-compatible hardware in order to install Windows 11. But now, in an unexpected and puzzling move, the company is issuing instructions for installing Windows 11 on incompatible PCs.”
This may appear to be a serious shift in policy, affecting the 400 million Windows users whose PCs do not meet the minimum threshold and preventing “the single largest surge in junked computers in history, with dire consequences for both consumers and the environment.” But it’s not, it is actually entirely pointless.
As CyberNews reports, “Microsoft allows users to install Windows 11 on older PCs but warns against doing so… A few days after announcing that the TPM 2 module, a major hardware requirement for Windows 11, was not a recommendation, but a necessity, Microsoft published an entry in its support page about installing the new OS on older hardware. As you might expect, it’s filled with warnings about potential issues caused by incompatible hardware. It also reminds users who don’t meet minimum requirements that they won’t be entitled to receive updates.”
Simply put, while Microsoft’s revised support document, “installing Windows 11 on devices that don’t meet minimum system requirements,” might seem to open that door to a Windows 11 upgrade for an incompatible PC, it warns users not to.
Windows 10’s surprise resurgence
“A device might malfunction due to these compatibility or other issues,” Microsoft says, warning that “devices that don’t meet these system requirements aren’t guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.”
There is also a full-fat disclaimer before you get to any actual update instructions: “If you proceed with installing Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and won’t be entitled to receive updates. Damages to your PC due to lack of compatibility aren’t covered under the manufacturer warranty. By selecting Accept, you are acknowledging that you read and understand this statement.”
So, as a Windows 10 user approaching end of support, you want to move to Windows 11 on your incompatible PC to maintain support. And while you can now do this, you will likely lose support. “So we’re back to square one,” says Tom’s Hardware.
All fun and games. But for those hundreds of millions of Windows 10 users, whose numbers appear to be growing not diminishing versus Windows 11, the risk is that millions of users will not know what to do next, and will pick the wrong option.
The headlines suggesting a reversal in policy will be welcomed as many now turn to Windows 11 before the deadline next October. Most of these users will not have the skills or expertise to navigate a risky upgrade path, a potential need to reverse, or note the signs of an incompatibility issue that drops them off security support.
What we need now is a single, unified guide to Windows 10’s end of life from Microsoft, providing clarity on the options and the risks, one that won’t leave users navigating what now appears to be a raft of contradictory reports.
Users will also hope for a genuine change in policy before October, certainly if the Windows 10 user numbers continue to hold-up as now, providing some minimal level of security fixes beyond the deadline even for those not parting with their $30.
We will just have to wait and see. But in the meantime, one of the big draws to push users to actually upgrade hardware continues to provide worrying headlines.
The backdrop to the Windows 10 shift to Windows 11, including the mass of PC upgrades, is of course AI. Microsoft’s most recent updates have been dominated by AI, and the Windows industry is pushing users towards new Copilot PCs where they can, which come with the required processing to make all these features work.
Microsoft’s Recall has been front and center in this push. From the get-go, it captured the imagination and alarmed in equal measure, and has been pulled and delayed multiple times as users and the security industry have gotten to grips with the implications of a constant stream of screenshots capturing everything we do.
Against that backdrop, Tom’s Hardware reporting that “Microsoft Recall screenshots credit cards and Social Security numbers, even with the ‘sensitive information’ filter enabled,” will land badly. “When I entered a credit card number and a random username / password into a Windows Notepad window, Recall captured it, despite the fact that I had text such as “Capital One Visa” right next to the numbers. Similarly, when I filled out a loan application PDF in Microsoft Edge, entering a social security number, name and DOB, Recall captured that.”
While in those same tests, “Recall refused to capture the credit card fields when I went to the payment pages of two online stores ,” there’s clearly more work to be done before this is going to assure everyday users it’s safe. And that means more time, which might make the delay to millions of upgrades more palatable.
In response to this latest report, Microsoft pointed to its blogpost: “We’ve updated Recall to detect sensitive information like credit card details, passwords, and personal identification numbers. When detected, Recall won’t save or store those snapshots. We’ll continue to improve this functionality, and if you find sensitive information that should be filtered out… please let us know through Feedback Hub.”
Either way, it’s just the latest in a train of unhelpful headlines that wont do much to kill the current upgrade inertia amongst Windows 10 users. And comping full circle, that might encourage those users to move to Windows 11 on current hardware, killing their security updates per this latest Microsoft warning. No easy choices.