Microsoft appears to be testing a Windows 11 watermark shaming unsupported hardware

It appears that Microsoft is testing an annoying watermark in Windows 11, assuaging users from using the OS on unsupported hardware. 

With Windows 11 only officially supporting Intel’s 8th Gen Coffee Lake or AMD’s Zen+ and Zen 2, or newer, CPUs, many users with older hardware have been using the simple workaround to dodge the hardware requirements and install Windows 11 on their devices, much to the displeasure of Microsoft. 

While this workaround thankfully still works, for now, Microsoft doesn’t seem all too happy about users getting away with it, as they’ve begun testing watermarks to shame users for not meeting the system requirements. 

As Twitter user Albacore spotted earlier this month, the system requirements warnings first appeared in the settings menu, quietly informing telling users “system requirements not met,” in order to hopefully prod them back towards the safe and supported arms of Windows 10. 

Thanks to Windows Latest, it now appears however that Microsoft is making their pestering more annoying, as, in the latest build of Windows, they’ve added a desktop watermark which similarly states “system requirements not met.”

With this annoying ‘feature’ still in testing, for now, there’s no word on when, or if, it will reach the official release build of Windows 11.