Microsoft adding a watermark on systems running Windows 11 that don't meet the system requirements

Armenius

Armenius

Extremely [H]
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
39,912
Now in the release preview channel, Windows 11 will show a watermark in the corner of the screen when the PC it's running on doesn't meet the system requirements. The watermark is similar to the "unactivated" watermark and will show up in fullscreen applications. Thankfully, there is a registry tweak to disable it right now, but who knows if Microsoft will take that away when it hits the main release.

https://betanews.com/2022/03/21/aft...requirements-not-met-watermark-to-windows-11/
 
sweet, they got 11 running on a 2016 MBP

1647893616618.png

"The most recent Insider build of Windows 11 sees Microsoft conducting A/B testing with the desktop warning. Will it end up rolling out to everyone? It's hard to say, but there will be a lot of angry Windows 11 users if this watermark does start appearing on desktops around the world."(from source link in article)

it may or may not end up in release. guess we'll see...
 
Will it affect the ability to receive security updates or other updates? Crap...I gave my son a laptop with 11 on it using the hack to install 11 on it.
 
My system has the watermark and it's showing the message under system info now after the most recent update. But my system meets the requirements and I've been running Windows 11 for a few months now.



 
Is there any real reason to upgrade to windows 11? All I’m hearing are horror stories. Pardon my ignorance on the issue.
 
Dudhunter said:
Is there any real reason to upgrade to windows 11? All I’m hearing are horror stories. Pardon my ignorance on the issue.
Click to expand...
eeeh, kinda but not really. its really not that bad and is basically just a face list of 10, with a few new things. thats how it always is, the few with issues are always the loudest.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Void
like this
Armenius said:
Now in the release preview channel, Windows 11 will show a watermark in the corner of the screen when the PC it's running on doesn't meet the system requirements. The watermark is similar to the "unactivated" watermark and will show up in fullscreen applications.
Click to expand...

Actually the watermark is smaller than the activation watermark, and it absolutely does NOT show up on top of any fullscreen application or any other window, only on the desktop when the desktop is showing.

Executioner said:
Will it affect the ability to receive security updates or other updates? Crap...I gave my son a laptop with 11 on it using the hack to install 11 on it.
Click to expand...

It did not affect updates on any of the Dev or Release preview builds that it was included on.

I am disappointed that they did this, because I have such a large number of systems with Windows 11 on them that don't meet the requirements. In some cases the systems are actually capable of meeting the requirements, but many of them had Windows 10 on them and were installed with legacy bios instead of UEFI, Secureboot disabled, etc, and it was easier to just bypass the requirements and upgrade to 11 than mess with trying to change any of that. At least the registry change to get rid of the watermark is very simple and easy. Anyone who was able to bypass the requirements should not have any issues making a simple registry edit. This would probably be a bigger issue for systems that were setup for friends or family. Thankfully it only shows up when everything is minimized and you are looking at your desktop wallpaper.

VirtualBox_Windows 11 Dev_22_03_2022_17_42_46.png


VirtualBox_Windows 11 Dev_22_03_2022_17_43_17.png
 
Last edited:
Microsoft always giving one thing with the right hand, while they take away two things with the left.
 
GotNoRice said:
Actually the watermark is smaller than the activation watermark, and it absolutely does NOT show up on top of any fullscreen application or any other window, only on the desktop when the desktop is showing...
Click to expand...

that watermark sure has a lot of text...MS could have simplified it and cut out some of the text to take up less space
 
polonyc2 said:
that watermark sure has a lot of text...MS could have simplified it and cut out some of the text to take up less space
Click to expand...

Those screenshots were from the latest Dev build, where it has always had the watermark saying "Evaluation copy". Only the first line has to do with the system requirements. On a non-dev build it will look like this:

Windows-11-unsupported-watermark.jpg
 
Dudhunter said:
Is there any real reason to upgrade to windows 11? All I’m hearing are horror stories. Pardon my ignorance on the issue.
Click to expand...
No not really, Alder Lake is supposed to work better on 11 but testing is a toss up so I wouldn't unless you're curious.

Remember what 8 and 10 did with 7? It's the same basic bones underneath but they hide it all behind new UI to make it look mac'ier now. It's harder to get to the real tools than it was on 10 too. To each their own, just my 2 cents.

It's not all that bad but I prefer windows 10 after modifying it to be more user-friendly.
 
Off the top of my head? I tried to make it a lot more like win7: right off the batt I add desktop icons back for This PC, Control Panel, super control panel, Network, etc. I tweak the task bar a bunch, turn the search box into an icon, I believe in file explorer you can add menus back to the top, disable UAC, and I think I modified the right click menu. After those basic improvements though, it's a lot better.

I'll check later and see if there's any other major magicsauce I worked, but even those simple improvements made W10 a lot more navigable.
 
Microsoft is so stupid... if it runs, then how can they say it doesn't meet the system requirements? Kind of a paradox....
 
djstarfox said:
Microsoft is so stupid... if it runs, then how can they say it doesn't meet the system requirements? Kind of a paradox....
Click to expand...

Potential security vulnerabilities. It's one of the reasons why Microsoft dropped support for older CPUs that require mitigations in order to fix vulnerabilities. It's also why they are being anal about TPM, etc. Google and other companies have really been pushing the idea that Windows is not a secure platform as they try to sell you Chromebooks.

 
I was reading Slashdot this morning, and it looks like someone regurgitated this rumor again. I promptly checked 3-4 "unsupported" systems that I have Windows 11 on, as well as several VMs that had Windows 11 installed using a workaround. All are fully updated, none are showing any watermark. Is there even one single person here who is seeing any watermark? If so, what version of Windows 11 are you running, and what hardware are you running it on?

edit: Just checked the latest Release Preview build on unsupported hardware and it's not there either.
edit2: Tested the latest Dev build also and still no watermark... Interesting that this is actually a reversal of what we saw last year (earlier in this thread). The watermark NEVER made it to any release build, but it's now disappeared from all of the latest Dev and Release Preview builds also.
 
Last edited:
GotNoRice said:
I was reading Slashdot this morning, and it looks like someone regurgitated this rumor again. I promptly checked 3-4 "unsupported" systems that I have Windows 11 on, as well as several VMs that had Windows 11 installed using a workaround. All are fully updated, none are showing any watermark. Is there even one single person here who is seeing any watermark? If so, what version of Windows 11 are you running, and what hardware are you running it on?

edit: Just checked the latest Release Preview build on unsupported hardware and it's not there either.
edit2: Tested the latest Dev build also and still no watermark... Interesting that this is actually a reversal of what we saw last year (earlier in this thread). The watermark NEVER made it to any release build, but it's now disappeared from all of the latest Dev and Release Preview builds also.
Click to expand...
Are you set up as an "insider" for any of those installs?
Now in the release preview channel,..
Click to expand...
 
I switched back to 10 on my laptop that doesn't meat the CPU spec. Just not worth the hassle as long as 10 is still getting updated.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Are you set up as an "insider" for any of those installs?
Click to expand...

No, I'm running the release version on my main computer at the moment. I usually switch to insider mainly when there is something significant upcoming. According to the article that was linked from Slashdot however, this watermark was supposedly showing up on release builds that had installed the January update. None of my computers are showing any watermark even after installing the February update. I checked out the latest Release Preview and Dev builds also as an extra layer of investigation just in case there happened to be something like this coming down the pipeline. For testing purposes I usually just get the latest builds from UUPdump.

I have a very old 64-bit Pentium 4 computer that serves no other purpose in life other than to test whether or not new versions of Windows 11 will continue to run on it, continue to recieve current windows updates, and/or if it will complain about the hardware. The computer literally meets NONE of the requirements that are specific to Windows 11. It installed the latest February cumulative update just fine, and no watermark.

bigdogchris said:
I switched back to 10 on my laptop that doesn't meat the CPU spec. Just not worth the hassle as long as 10 is still getting updated.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly not implying that you need any specific reason to justify running any version of windows that you want to, but I am curious what "hassle" you are referring to. There are a dozen different ways to bypass the requirements, all of which are trivial, and once Windows 11 is installed, there is nothing else that you need to do after that in order to keep it running.
 
GotNoRice said:
I'm certainly not implying that you need any specific reason to justify running any version of windows that you want to, but I am curious what "hassle" you are referring to. There are a dozen different ways to bypass the requirements, all of which are trivial, and once Windows 11 is installed, there is nothing else that you need to do after that in order to keep it running.
Click to expand...
Well, like I said, I moved back to 10, which you should infer means I was on 11 so I understand that.

They are just so similar of an OS that any possible future update that may not apply because of the CPU limitation, or whatever other limitation they may choose to add, just isn't worth it on a laptop that I only use once or twice a month for nearly identical OS experience. I just want to turn it on and use it.

Since you seem so concerned, can you give a reason to use 11 over 10 on an older laptop that is used very infrequently?
 
bigdogchris said:
Since you seem so concerned, can you give a reason to use 11 over 10 on an older laptop that is used very infrequently?
Click to expand...

I specifically said that you don't need a "reason" to use whatever OS that you want to, only that I was curious about what you referred to as a "hassle". My personal reason would be that newer is better. Better to switch over now than later; 2025 is not as far away as it once was.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Lol desktop Linux :rofl:. That's not even a good photoshop - - - oh wait, Linux doesn't work with photoshop!
Click to expand...
The irony in my situation is I tried installing several Linux distros on my laptop in question and they all crashed during install (can't format disk).

I feel like OS discussions are a nerd version of the Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man meme.
 
I guess at least Windows tells you upfront your hardware is now crap. So, there's that now.
 
I am sort of ok with this, I wanted to pickup a 2nd hand thinkpad and was looking on ebay.. I saw quite a number of thinkpads that were 6th or 7th gen processors that the seller had installed Windows 11 on... People buying these may or may not realize that it took a kludge to get Windows 11 on there, and that their "new to them" laptop is not actually meeting the Hardware requirements for Win 11?

Here is what I ended up with this X13 G2 Ryzen 5 5650U (which was actually new) with Windows 10, It does meet the requirements for Win 11 but I do not want to move to it at this time.

ThinkpadX13.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top