Automatic updates to Windows 11 23H2, the latest stable version, have already begun in a practice that Microsoft repeats when previous versions run out of support or near an end-of-service date.

Although Windows 11 has its life ahead of it, it is worth clarifying that Microsoft supports each release only for a limited time. Support for Windows 11 21H2 ended in October 2023, and version 22H2 will end in October 2024. Both versions have been qualified as “eligible” for this forced update process, which includes commercial PCs (those not managed by organizations and companies) as well as consumer PCs for two main editions, Home and Pro.

Its operation is known. Updates are automatically downloaded and installed on your device. The user has some freedom when they want to reboot their device to finish it. Additionally, if Microsoft detects an issue during the process, such as an incompatibility with your device, it will block security until the issue is resolved.

Better to update on your own

Quote from Microsoft security reasons for this type of automatic updates. And certainly new versions should be more secure and have newer, more advanced features and support. The problem with Windows 11 is the number of failures caused by the updates themselves, which is why some users, especially on production machines, take preventive measures by blocking updates until their stability is verified.

The rollout of automatic updates to Windows 11 23H2 will happen in phases and follows machine learning (ML) training, according to Microsoft. “We will continue to train our intelligent machine learning model to safely deploy this new version of Windows to ensure seamless updates.”they comment.

I don’t know about you, but we prefer to update ourselves to have more control over these installations. There are two ways to do this:

• The easiest way is to look for updates in the Windows Update section of the general Settings tool. The installation saves data, files, installed applications and user settings.
• Another option is to take advantage of the installation to clean up your computer (recommended to do this from time to time) by installing from scratch with ISO images provided by Microsoft. You can also perform the same update from the media created with the images as from Windows Update if you want to keep all your data.

In both cases, you will be upgraded to the latest stable version of Windows 11 23H2. And it is appropriate to do so before Microsoft’s artificial intelligence necessarily does, which you won’t be able to control. A partial ‘Moments 5’ update will arrive later (probably in March) and later (October-November) 24H2, which will be the only major release this year. As for Windows 12, October 2025 is still said to be the likely release date as it coincides with the end of support for Windows 10.