Windows 11 might not update if you have the wrong hardware or apps

A bug that borks your PC on a new Windows update is a familiar headache for many of us. It’s gotten less frequent in the last few years thanks to Microsoft being a little more proactive, as Windows will now scan your hardware and installed software for potential incompatibilities before it updates, then halt said update if it sees a problem.

But with the growing number of issues affecting the Windows 11 24H2 update, we’re seeing a surprising expansion in the breadth of these upgrade blocks. BleepingComputer has an excellent rundown of exactly what hardware and software might keep your system from the update.

Incompatibilities include some obvious things, like a few Asus laptops that are known to get blue screen crashes after the update, or integrated webcams and fingerprint sensors that might stop working.

But there are some more innocuous mentions, including:

• Gameloft’s Asphalt 8: Airborne, a free-to-play racing game ported from smartphones and featured on the official Windows store.
• The Safe Exam Browser, an anti-cheating program required for many university students and industrial training systems.
• Easy Anti-Cheat, a popular software tool for online multiplayer games. Updates for your game and/or Intel drivers might fix this.
• Some wallpaper customization tools, which might break after the install. What a weird thing to hold up an allegedly vital update!
• Intel Smart Sound Technology, which can be fixed with a driver update through Windows Update. Why not just bake that in?

The full list is worth a look if you’re eager to get on the latest build of Windows 11 and you’ve encountered issues. And Microsoft is certainly working on getting at least some of these problems addressed without any necessary action from users.

But these weird and seemingly random conflicts illustrate that Microsoft’s task of keeping Windows users safe on the latest software isn’t getting any easier. It feels inevitable that we’ll be seeing more of these as Windows, the drivers it requires, and the software we run on it become more and more complex, all built on top of an aging and somewhat creaky operating system.

Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld