Windows 11 FAQ: Release date, requirements, price -- plus when and how to upgrade

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What's new in Windows 11? What are its minimum hardware requirements? When will your PC be eligible for the upgrade? We've got answers to your Windows 11 questions.

"Microsoft took the wraps off of Windows 11 in a 45-minute online event, titled "What's next for Windows," held on June 24, 2021. A few days later, the company released the first preview of the new operating system for members of the Windows Insider Preview Program. The official release will begin reaching Windows 10 PCs in a "phased rollout" that will officially start on October 5, 2021, and continue through mid-2022. 

If you use a Windows PC at home or at work, how will this upgrade affect you? I've been collecting your questions and have   assembled the answers here.

Also: The best parts of Windows 11 are already in Windows 10. Here's how to enable them

What is Windows 11?

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, Windows 11 is the successor to Windows 10. It's built on the same core architecture as Windows 10; indeed, Microsoft could have chosen to deliver the new features in Windows 11 through a series of semi-annual feature updates to Windows 10 without a name change.

Instead, they chose to make this a good old-fashioned "big bang" release, with a new major version number and a laundry list of new features.

For starters, there's a new user experience, with refreshed colors and icons, major changes to the Start menu and taskbar, an extensive reworking of the Settings app, a Widgets pane designed to deliver bite-size chunks of news and reminders, and a greatly improved way to snap windows into position.

Hardware-assisted security, which has been an optional part of Windows 10, is now mandatory, which means Secure Boot and device encryption are available by default to protect against increasingly sophisticated online attacks.

If you've been unimpressed with the paltry selection of apps in the Microsoft Store, you're not alone. Windows 11 offers a major update to the Store, including the option for third-party developers to make their conventional Win32 desktop apps available for secure downloads through the Store.

And speaking of apps, Windows 11 will include a new Windows Subsystem for Android, allowing Android apps to run on the familiar Windows desktop, although that feature will not ship with the initial release of Windows 11. There's one catch, though: For now, at least, those apps will come from the Amazon app store, which also suffers from Paltry App Selection Syndrome. In theory, the availability of Android apps could expand in the future with the addition of more robust app repositories like the Samsung App Store or even (gasp!) the Google Play Store. That feature is not yet turned on in preview releases, and anyone with a long memory of Microsoft's experiments in this space has a right to be skeptical."

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