After three months of Insider Preview builds, Microsoft is finally launching Windows 11 on October 5, 2021. While the preview builds gave us a glimpse of what to expect from the OS, Windows 11 will undergo many changes before it releases. The biggest of these changes is the eligibility criteria.

Unlike the preview builds, Windows 11 will only arrive on eligible devices when it launches on October 5, 2021. As such, let’s take a look at what these "eligible devices" are and why they are the most likely to get Windows 11 first.

Brand New Devices Will Get Windows 11 First

Surface Laptop Go in Gold

According to a recent blog post by Microsoft, the company will roll out Windows 11 in a “measured and phased approach.” Microsoft is evaluating PCs on their recency, hardware, and reliability. PCs with newer hardware are most likely to get Windows 11 before older computers.

Related: Can Your PC Run Windows 11? Check These System Requirements

As such, brand new devices will get the new OS when it becomes available, while current Windows 10 users will have to wait until 2022 for the free upgrade. As you might expect, this has given Microsoft the opportunity to advertise its newest hardware to eager Windows 11 fans, such as its Surface event on September 22, 2021.

Finally, Microsoft announced on its blog that some devices that don’t meet the hardware requirements might also get the Windows 11 update in 2022. This includes devices such as the Surface Studio 2 that run 7th gen Intel processors.

So, keep an eye out for a possible update if you own one of these machines.

Older PCs Can Still Run Windows 11

The free, over-the-air Windows 11 update will only come to eligible computers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t run Windows 11 on ineligible devices.

You can grab Windows 11 ISO files from the Microsoft website when it becomes available and install the OS on your computer. Windows 11 may not function very well on machines without compatible hardware, but you can install it. Just be prepared for a rougher experience.