In June, Microsoft announced Windows 11, the next version of its Windows operating system. As of October 5th, the new OS began rolling out to excited Windows users the world over. Here at SentinelOne, we made sure that our users would be supported on Windows 11 from day one, benefiting from all the trusted security features they’ve come to expect from the SentinelOne platform.
According to Microsoft, Windows 11 is a free upgrade for Windows 10 users that began a staggered roll out on October 5th to select devices. Windows 11 changes the design aesthetic of the Windows platform and offers a number of new features. The most important change between Windows 11 and Windows 10, however, lies under the hood.
Minimum specs for the new version of this OS include Windows 10 and at least 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Even then, the primary consideration is the processor. In general, machines older than three or four years may not support Windows 11, so be sure to check Microsoft’s exact technical requirements or download the PC Health Check app before upgrading your devices.
If your device is compatible with Windows 11, a Microsoft update will be made available to you at some point from October 5th, with the full roll out expected to extend into 2022.
As with any operating system update or upgrade, you should always expect security updates that improve the overall security posture of your device. The hardware requirements for Windows 11 will also ensure that, by design, devices capable of running this and later Windows OSs will not be susceptible to some known classes of vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown.
However, like Windows 10 and previous versions of Microsoft’s operating systems, Windows 11 is not a complete rewrite of the Windows OS from the ground up. For compatibility reasons, much of the underlying codebase remains the same as Windows 10, and threat actors will continue to find and exploit software vulnerabilities as well as manipulate users through well known social engineering techniques like phishing and business email compromise, and deploy malware and ransomware.
Yes, we do. If your device can run Windows 11, then you will find it is supported by the SentinelOne agent out of the box. The SentinelOne Windows agent, version 21.5 and above, fully supports the release of Windows 11.
Even better, there is no action required prior to upgrading to Windows 11 so long as your current agent version is 21.5 or later. The Sentinelone Windows agent provides the same security and performance coverage on Windows 11 as on Windows 10.
For machines with a Sentinelone agent version prior to 21.5, the option to upgrade to Windows 11 will be blocked to avoid leaving the device unprotected. Ensure the SentinelOne agent is upgraded to version 21.5 or higher in order to upgrade to Windows 11.
For more information, please refer to Sentinelone support documentation or contact us.
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