WINDOWS 11: A NEW ERA FOR THE PC BEGINS TODAY
Today marks an exciting milestone in the history of Windows. As the day becomes October 5 in each time zone around the world, availability of Windows 11 begins through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 that can be purchased beginning today.
Windows is a driving force for innovation. It’s an enduring platform for each one of us to create. And its home for over a billion people to do their jobs, live their dreams and connect with the people they love.
The Windows 11 user experience brings you closer to what you love, empowers you to produce and inspires you to create. Windows 11 provides a sense of calm and openness. It gives you a place that feels like home. It’s secure and everything is designed to be centered around you.
To fully understand the magic of Windows 11 you must get it in your hands. The gorgeous graphics, sounds and animations of Windows 11 along with the innovative and beautiful hardware from our partners and Surface provides an experience like none other.
There’s never been a better time to buy a PC
As we look to next year and beyond, whether it’s to work, create, connect, learn or play, the PC will continue to play a relevant and lasting role in our lives.
Throughout the month of September, we’ve seen some amazing new Windows 11 devices announced from our partners at ASUS, HP and Lenovo, and from the Surface team. Acer, Dell, Samsung and other partners will also be releasing new Windows 11 devices soon. Each one of our partners is critical to bringing Windows 11 to life. No other ecosystem has the breadth and scale that the Windows ecosystem does to meet the needs of people whether they’re creators, developers, students and educators, business and gamers at every price point and in every form factor.
We’re proud to offer Windows 11 on the widest array of choice in devices, form factors and silicon from our valued partners at Acer, AMD, ASUS, Dell, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Samsung and Surface.
Bringing you closer to what you love
From the new Start menu and Taskbar, to each sound, font and icon you see, the team thought through every pixel and detail to bring you a more modern, fresh and beautiful experience. With Start at the center you have quick access to the content and apps you care about and through the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365 (sold separately) you can see recent files you’ve been working on regardless of which device you were using, even if it was an Android or iOS device.
To get you closer to the content and information you care about we’re introducing Widgets, a new personalized feed powered by AI and the web. Opening your personalized feed with a click or a swipe from the left is smooth and seamless as Widgets slides across your screen like a sheet of glass. Whether it’s glancing at your day through Outlook calendar and To-Do list integrations, catching up on the latest headlines or tomorrow’s weather forecast, or viewing your favorite OneDrive photo memories, Widgets bring everything you love to your fingertips.
Chat from Microsoft Teams is a new experience that helps bring you closer to the people you care about. With a simple click you can use a personal account to chat, voice or video call with your friends, family and other contacts regardless of the device or platform they’re on – Windows, Mac, Android or iOS. Microsoft Teams isn’t just for people with smart devices; your friends and family can join the conversation via SMS text messaging. Plus, you can open the full Microsoft Teams experience directly from Chat to bring your plans to life with event scheduling, quick polls, file sharing and more.
The new Microsoft Store on Windows brings you closer to your favorite apps and entertainment -- all in one place. The Microsoft Store on Windows also makes it easier to search and discover new content with curated stories and collections. New apps are available today in the Microsoft Store on Windows, such as Canva, Disney+, Zoom, the Epic Game Store and so much more.
Empowering your productivity and inspiring your creativity
Windows 11 features powerful new experiences that empower your productivity and inspire your creativity.
We’re all multitasking more than ever on our PCs, from multiple monitors and browser tabs to editing documents in Word or PowerPoint. With Windows 11, we’re making it easier to focus and stay in your flow with Snap Layouts and Groups, and Desktops.
Snap Layouts and Groups offer a more powerful way to multitask and optimize your screen real estate in a way that is visually clean. With new three-column layouts for larger screens, it has never been easier to have all the content you need at your fingertips perfectly arranged.
With Desktops you can create individual Desktops that display different sets of apps to help you stay organized and focused, like making separate spaces in your home, and you can even customize each Desktop with its own name and wallpaper.
Accessibility was considered from the start in the development of Windows 11, with inclusive design reviews of new and redesigned features. We’re proud that Windows 11 is the most inclusively designed version of Windows, built with and for people with disabilities. Windows 11 offers familiar assistive technologies like Narrator, Magnifier, Closed Captions and Windows Speech Recognition to support people across the disability spectrum.
For developers, Windows 11 offers new tools and resources
With Windows 11, we endeavored to make Windows a more open platform. We thought about the development process and what tools and capabilities you need to create amazing apps. We built Windows 11 with developers in mind. You can create and build apps using the tools, frameworks, and languages that you know and love. We’re also embracing all your apps and will work to make them feel at home on Windows. Visit this blog post to learn more about our advancements for developers.
Windows 11 is built for gaming
Windows 11 was made for gaming, with innovative new features that can take your PC gaming experience to the next level. If your PC has an HDR capable display, Auto HDR will automatically upgrade over 1000 DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games to high dynamic range, rendering a much wider range of colors and brightness. We also believe that player choice is important, so Windows 11 includes the ability to turn Auto HDR on or off on a per-game basis.
Windows 11 also includes support for DirectStorage, a feature we first introduced on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. When paired with an NVMe solid state drive and DirectX 12 GPU, games that implement DirectStorage can benefit from reduced load times and render more detailed and expansive game worlds.
Windows 11 also includes the Xbox app built right in. Through the Xbox app you can browse, download and play over 100 high-quality PC games with Game Pass for PC (membership sold separately). And this October kicks off the three biggest months in Xbox history with incredible game launches including Age of Empires IV on Oct. 28, Forza Horizon 5 on Nov. 9 and Halo Infinite on Dec. 8. All three of these games will be available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC members on day one. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can also play 100+ Xbox console games on their PC without having to wait for a download, thanks to the power of Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) with the Xbox app.
Enabling the hybrid workforces and classrooms of tomorrow
Windows 11 is the operating system for hybrid work and learning. Through the rapid acceleration of digital transformation that we’ve seen over the last 19 months, it is critical for today’s organizations to be resilient and flexible. With the shift to hybrid work, where work is constantly changing, we understand the importance of an operating system that is flexible, consistent, secure and works how you work. That’s why Windows 11 is built on the consistent, compatible and familiar Windows 10 foundation that is easy for IT to manage. Beginning today, organizations can begin moving to Windows 11 on powerful PCs and through the cloud with Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktop.
Windows 11 is designed for chip-to-cloud protection
As we continue on our journey, feedback from our customers and the industry is so important to helping us shape a Windows that our customers love. To that end, we conducted a survey of Security Decision Makers in the U.S. from a range of industries and found that 75% of security decision makers, VP and above, feel that the move to hybrid work leaves their organization more vulnerable to security threats. This last year has proven that security needs to be built in from the hardware up, the chip to the cloud. In fact, 80% of respondents feel that software alone is not enough protection from emerging threats. Windows 11 was designed with security in mind to meet the challenges we will face in this new work environment and beyond.
SHOTLIST
- Windows 11 startup sound and logo
- Sizzle video showcasing new design, icon and themes
- On-screen demo of Windows 11 desktop
- Close of person demoing Snap Layout features
- On-screen demo of Snap Layout features
- On-screen demo of Desktops feature
- Child using Chat for Teams
- On-screen demo of Chat for Teams
- On-screen demo of Xbox Game Pass and launching a game
- On-screen demo of Xbox game play
- Medium of person demoing Widgets and personalized feed on touch screen
- On-screen demo of Widgets
- Medium of person demoing Microsoft Store on touch screen, launching movie
- Various of Surface Adaptive Kit
- Surface Laptop Studio
- Surface Pro 8
- Surface Pro X
- Surface Go 3
- Surface Duo 2
- STILL IMAGE: HP 11-inch tablet
- STILL IMAGE: Asus ProArt Studiobook 16
- STILL IMAGE: Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Carbon
- SOUNDBITE (English) Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft: “The past 18 months have reminded us how essential the PC is to work, life, learning, and connecting. With Windows 11, we have renewed sense of the role Windows plays in the world. It offers personal agency and real choice to users. It's a stage for the world's creation. It's a platform for platform creators. With each new generation of Windows, we also unlock the next generation of hardware innovation across our entire ecosystem.”
- SOUNDBITE (English) Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer at Microsoft: “Windows is a driving force for innovation. It's an enduring platform for each one of us to create. And it's home for billions to do their jobs, live their dreams, connect with the people they love. Windows 11 gives you a place that feels like home. It's an area of calm, security, openness, and it's designed to be centered around you. When you use it, you'll feel that.”
4 October 2021
