MicrosoftThis article makes my head hurt. I am the IT department in a house with 3 windows 11 computers, of varying age, and now I have to figure out when Windows 11 was installed on each of them, and which flavor was installed, to understand what sorts of upgrades they get. This is a nightmare for semi knowledgeable people like me, and a mess for people who do not have their own IT department. THEY will like just ignore it, and hope that MS will not brick their un-backed up computer as part of the next update.
This confirms my theory that the ultimate goal of MS is to eliminate the "personal computer" and replace it with simple terminals, like the ones I used back on 1970, that are connected to the "cloud", aka the mainframe.
Hi rxc6422 , the following information should help you with managing your Windows 11 computers.
How to determine when it was installed and the version
1. Click on the Windows logo > search for Settings.
2. In Settings, on the left-hand side, there is the System link.
3. In the main section, scroll down to the Windows info section.
4. This is where you can find the Edition and Version of Windows 11 along with the date it was Installed on.
Upgrades
There are several resources to reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/windows11-release-information#windows-11-release-history - This will list the latest build numbers for the version of Windows 11, for example, Version 25H2.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-11-home-and-pro - This will show when support ends for different Windows 11 versions.
If your computers were purchased from manufacturers such as Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc, they might also have dedicated websites about Windows 11 support for their devices. For example, here is the one for Lenovo - https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht512575.
Hopefully the above information provides you with the details you are looking for.
I fail to understand your dilemma as far as managing your three computers you have at home... Why wouldn't you just allow them all to update to the latest available mainstream build release (or stay behind by one release if you prefer to avoid the newest changes and features for stability)? You'll still be covered with cumulative security updates for a year while you're holding back on a previous build.
What relevance does the "flavor" you installed of Windows matter here also? Unless it's an Enterprise SKU (which at home I assume it isn't), you have 24 months of support/updates on each build from the time it releases. If you're waiting a year behind, then that means you still have another year of support/updates for the build you're on before you need to upgrade to the next one (which will by then be 1 year old, if that's the cycle you're sticking to, and thus have another remaining year of patches before you need to update to the next build to stay in scope).
While I don't disagree with the notion of Microsoft (and every other party) wanting to convince us all that "we will.own nothing, and we will be happy" with respect to maintaining all of our infrastructure in their own cloud if they can, I'm not sure what about this article makes your head hurt. If you're an end-user or managing three home PC's for your family, I'm not sure why you would find the information in this article very relevant or important anyways. Just install recent updates on your home PC's so you know that they're remaining within the support lifecycle. No need for reading technet articles witj lifecycle charts like this one.
As for worrying about updates bricking PC's that aren't backed up, well, it sounds like you've identified one thing you probably could be working on - implementing a straightforward backup mechanism for your home PC's, as there are far more than failed Microsoft updates that can leave you without a functioning machine or access to its data. It's not an excuse for Microsoft when they cause problems like this, but it doesn't change the fact that it's something you should be addressing on your own IT department or scope of management for a number of other reasons already, which would put you at ease when it comes to installing the latest updates if you're really worried about it
