
You need to make a concerted effort to deploy Windows 11 in those environments. Guidance for IT professionalsįor IT admins who want to make sure your users can’t bypass your settings and install Windows 11, know that if your machines are managed by Windows Software Update Services, SCCM, or other patch management tools, Windows 11 will not be offered up to your managed systems. But they may not be as tested as you and I would like, which is why I do not recommend installing them. Most times, these preview updates aren’t harmful. In Windows 10, unless you have set deferrals for features, anytime you click on “Check for Updates” you will receive updates Microsoft deems “preview updates” -non-security fixes Microsoft releases ahead of the next month for admins to test. It can be confusing, especially for those used to Windows 7, where you could scan for updates and simply review patches. Doing so actually means if there are any updates ready to be installed, go ahead and install them. I have a rule in patching: to never, ever click on the “Check for Updates” option in Windows 10. There have been a number of responses from readers in one case, the poster said, “Windows 11 does start installing without user input.” Another user said he clicked on the “Check for Updates” button, which triggered the install of Windows 11.Īnd therein lies my recommendation for those who don’t want updates - and specifically, Windows 11 - disturbing your computing experience. And I urged anyone who had inadvertently received Windows 11 to reach out to me.

I wrote last week about how you can roll back to Windows 10 if you somehow received Windows 11 and don’t want to keep it. But in other cases, the Windows 11 install trigger is much less obvious. It appears the user inadvertently approved the update. (Yes, there have been cases where people signed up for the Microsoft insider program and Windows 11 was installed. Next are the interesting reports I’ve seen about Windows 11 getting installed on systems where a user didn’t approve the installation. Given that most users are probably not running PCs that support Windows 11, the addition of the tool just rubs that fact in our face. This isn’t an update being offered, it’s one that is very obviously being pushed. To add insult to injury, the PC Health tool is not un-installable through the normal update history panel you have to go through applications and features to find and remove it from your system.

It’s even being installed on PCs that don’t have the necessary processor to support Windows 11.


Let’s start with Microsoft pushing KB5005463 - the PC Health Check Application - onto Windows 10 machines. Case in point: Microsoft’s update behavior.
