You may be waiting a while for Wi-Fi 7 support in Windows 11, but Microsoft is working on it
Windows 11 is now adding support for Wi-Fi 7, which will no doubt please those who want to use the much-improved wireless standard – but this is only in testing at the moment.
That’s despite the fact that Wi-Fi 7 routers already exist, and the standard has been officially finalized by the Wi-Fi Alliance (the Wi-Fi Certified 7 program was announced in early January 2024).
As you might guess, it will be some time before official Wi-Fi 7 support becomes available in the release version of Windows 11, as it has to go through testing channels first.
Right now it’s only in the Canary (earliest) test channel with build 26063, a preview release that flew somewhat under our radar, but an important one in this regard. However, it has also been added for developer channel testers, as Microsoft informed us in the usual manner blog post on build 26063 (as indicated by XDA Developers).
As the software giant also noted, Wi-Fi 7 (also known as 802.11be) is on the order of 4x faster than Wi-Fi 6 and about 6x faster than Wi-Fi 5.
If you want to learn more about how this new wireless standard is making big strides – and it’s not just about pure speed, although that is of course very important – check out our guide to the ins and outs of Wifi 7.
Analysis: Wireless party
In fairness to Microsoft, while it seems pretty late for the wireless party and Wi-Fi 7 may have officially launched (at least in some countries, including the US, Australia and Britain), it’s still too early for the standard.
The standard may now be effectively set in stone, but that does not mean that adjustments will not occur in the future. There will inevitably be firmware updates for existing Wi-Fi 7 routers to fix or tweak things in the future as needed, although all the big cogs in terms of features are now in place.
Windows 11 is one of the last pieces of the puzzle to be added for Wi-Fi 7 support, for laptops with Wi-Fi 7. And of course, as mentioned, you’ll need a Wi-Fi 7 router to get this enjoy faster wireless speeds. (These devices are also currently expensive, it should be noted – although that is generally true of all high-end technology).
With Wi-Fi 7 we get performance that makes wireless online gaming a reality in the sense that it is close to wired (Ethernet) performance, and certainly much better than other fudges for PCs that are not directly connected to the router (such as powerline- adapters, which can be notoriously weak in some scenarios).
What about Windows 10 support for Wi-Fi 7? We’re still not sure, although last we heard it was incoming – but no sign of that yet.