Solved Surprised at no auto bitlocker encryption after Win 10 to Win 11.

Yesterday I upgraded from Win 10 to Win 11 with the expectation that my C drive would be encoded by bitlocker.
I had be waiting for Win 11 excitedly and read most of the info on what should happen and although I did not want it to encrypted, thought it was would be by default as part of the new MS Win 11 enforced security.
I was very pleased, but surprised when the Win 10 to Win 11 only took 1 hour and no encryption. My estimate of the time to encrypt the C drive was around 15 hours.
Can somebody explain why this was the default for me, and confirm that my Win 11 PC will NOT be forced to encrypt at some later date.

It was the default for most of us if not all of us. I don't see us being forced to encrypt but only MS can answer that question.

When I upgraded from a very early version of 11 .192 or earlier it did encrypt my drive by default even though it wasn't before. My other computer was upgraded a little while ago and was on build .258 that didn't encrypt by default. I wonder if MS has changed the default option in later builds.

As somebody said on here in another thread MS is business orientated, which means they want total security for the data, hence TPM etc.
Presumably in early releases the default was encrypt to suit business machines, and then the insiders complained (I am not an insider).
This means normal Home and Pro users whom also require TPM etc to upgrade are having to meet a spec that MAY be impossible when they don't really need to meet the spec at all, as they are not bothered about data security in the same way.
Does that make sense?

BaJohn said:

As somebody said on here in another thread MS is business orientated, which means they want total security for the data, hence TPM etc.
Presumably in early releases the default was encrypt to suit business machines, and then the insiders complained (I am not an insider).
This means normal Home and Pro users whom also require TPM etc to upgrade are having to meet a spec that MAY be impossible when they don't really need to meet the spec at all, as they are not bothered about data security in the same way.
Does that make sense?

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Ive been using win 11 since the very first dev build and every one since, It has never encrypted any of my drives by default. So im running both without encryption.
And thats on win11 education edition(Which i believe is on par with enterprise) so yeah

BaJohn said:

As somebody said on here in another thread MS is business orientated, which means they want total security for the data, hence TPM etc.
Presumably in early releases the default was encrypt to suit business machines, and then the insiders complained (I am not an insider).
This means normal Home and Pro users whom also require TPM etc to upgrade are having to meet a spec that MAY be impossible when they don't really need to meet the spec at all, as they are not bothered about data security in the same way.
Does that make sense?

Click to expand...

I see what you're saying @BaJohn but from my experience home users have newer machines than companies do and a lot of company computers won't be on 11 because they are too old and therefore do not meet the min requirements of secure boot or tpm 2.0

Devlin1888 said:

Ive been using win 11 since the very first dev build and every one since, It has never encrypted any of my drives by default. So im running both without encryption.
And thats on win11 education edition so yeah

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I know both of mine are win 11 pro so the option is there

The-Hive said:

I see what you're saying @BaJohn but from my experience home users have newer machines than companies do and a lot of company computers won't be on 11 because they are too old and therefore do not meet the min requirements of secure boot or tpm 2.0

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Not to mention alot of companies take years to switch over to new OS in general anyway. Smaller companies might transition quicker due to having less infrastructure to organise.

So my Win 10 PC which 'cannot' be upgraded because of CPU and TPM constraint is stuck at Win 10.
But the reason for TPM is mainly for security that I don't need.
Not sure why my CPU is not included in the list. Perhaps it's just for speed to deal with the load, which I wouldn't object to that PC going a bit slower. (Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.4 GHz)
Just trying to understand the Win 10 to Win 11 process etc.

BaJohn said:

So my Win 10 PC which 'cannot' be upgraded because of CPU and TPM constraint is stuck at Win 10.
But the reason for TPM is mainly for security that I don't need.
Not sure why my CPU is not included in the list. Perhaps it's just for speed to deal with the load, which I wouldn't object to that PC going a bit slower. (Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.4 GHz)
Just trying to understand the Win 10 to Win 11 process etc.

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Are we talking about two different Pc's? One with a 2600k and the one in youre specs has a 9700k,Im assuming this thread is in regards to the 2600k? Sorry confused now xD

Devlin1888 said:

Are we talking about two different Pc's? One with a 2600k and the one in youre specs has a 9700k,Im assuming this thread is in regards to the 2600k? Sorry confused now xD

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YES - I would like if possible to have them both at Win 11.

BaJohn said:

YES

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Ahhhh right i see, Sorry you didn't mention that so we were all basing this on the PC in your specs on you're profile.
So the 2600K im gonna say aint included in the list due to it being around 10 years old and the architecture not being up to scratch security wise.
You can still install win 11, But you'll need to do the work around that bypasses the tpm and cpu compatibility, However you wouldn't get any security updates as far as im aware. A do at you're own peril kinda thing.
See Here

Just realized that the boot method on the Win 10 PC is 'legacy' and cannot be update - Sorry guys for wasting your time.
Only solution is to buy new motherboard with new CPU and memory.
Okay enough is enough - I'll close this tomorrow.

Devlin1888 said:

Ahhhh right i see, Sorry you didn't mention that so we were all basing this on the PC in your specs on you're profile.
So the 2600K im gonna say aint included in the list due to it being around 10 years old and the architecture not being up to scratch security wise.
You can still install win 11, But you'll need to do the work around that bypasses the tpm and cpu compatibility, However you wouldn't get any security updates as far as im aware. A do at you're own peril kinda thing.
See Here

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My Bad.
I'll leave that PC (to be fair it is fast, fairly quiet but nearly 11 years old) until Oct 2025 and think about it then, if it and myself are still around.
Good to know that we have some experts here on ElevenForums.
Regards

BaJohn said:

My Bad.
I'll leave that PC (to be fair it is fast, fairly quiet but nearly 11 years old) until Oct 2025 and think about it then, if it and myself are still around.
Good to know that we have some experts here on ElevenForums.
Regards

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Its all good! Just wasn't sure it was two different pc's in question that was all .
Yeah it'll run on win 10 no bother til then! Ah im sure you both will be!
Have a nice evening!

Hi all,

I had a Win 11 insider version installed as a dual boot on a compatible laptop.
After I was done with it I just wiped the partition.
Big surprise when I booted into the original Win 10 partition and found all the other partitions Bitlockered.
Not the Win10 partition mind you. Data partition, Virtual machines partition, First line backup partition, all locked.
Strange, I never set it.
But all the keys where automatically uploaded to my MS account.
Got a little scare though.
They might have warned me.

Ciao, Han

BaJohn said:

Just realized that the boot method on the Win 10 PC is 'legacy' and cannot be update - Sorry guys for wasting your time.
Only solution is to buy new motherboard with new CPU and memory.
Okay enough is enough - I'll close this tomorrow.

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@BaJohn You never waste our time, it's all educational and it all gets very complicated at times with all these "workrounds" never used one myself. I think if it's not compatible it will be a better machine left on 10 certainly was for one of mine back in the insider days

Devlin1888 said:

However you wouldn't get any security updates as far as im aware. A do at you're own peril kinda thing.

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This has now been debunked. You WILL get security and other updates.

I have installed Win 11 on numerous unsupported systems. 7th gen CPU, 6th gen CPU, 4th gen CPU, even 2nd gen CPU. All have received updates.

Could these systems stop working at any time, especially after new feature releases? Sure, but for now, let's stop spreading this miinformation that updates are not being provided.

Every one of those people in media who speculated prior to release that unsupported systems would not receive security updates had no idea what they were talking about and how things work in the real world and and I publicly stated so here at that time in the forums.

hsehestedt said:

This has now been debunked. You WILL get security and other updates.

I have installed Win 11 on numerous unsupported systems. 7th gen CPU, 6th gen CPU, 4th gen CPU, even 2nd gen CPU. All have received updates.

Could these systems stop working at any time, especially after new feature releases? Sure, but for now, let's stop spreading this miinformation that updates are not being provided.

Every one of those people in media who speculated prior to release that unsupported systems would not receive security updates had no idea what they were talking about and how things work in the real world and and publicly stated so here at that time in the forums.

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It was provided by Brink in that forum post, So is he lying or...

BaJohn said:

Just realized that the boot method on the Win 10 PC is 'legacy' and cannot be update - Sorry guys for wasting your time.

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Even that doesn't stop the upgrade, there are workarounds to bypass all checks when performing and upgrade. See my System Two below, for an example of 11 on a Legacy/MBR machine. And despite being a totally unsupported device, so far it has been offered all the updates though Windows Update including the latest one, Thursday's optional CU.

This screenshot was from my System Two.



Regarding your Bitlocker question. I have done two upgrades and one clean install now. My System One is a supported machine, but as its Windows that was upgraded to 11 was 10 Home bitlocker would not be expected anyway. System Two had 10 Pro, and bitlocker was not enabled by the upgrade. The clean install of 11 Pro on a fully supported machine did turn on Bitlocker by default for all drives, the C: drive and a D: Data drive that I had created before the install.