ReFS systems: Microsoft is working on upgrades for Windows 11

Microsoft is working on enabling the so-called in-place upgrades from Windows 11 on a ReFS volume as well. This was discovered in one of the new preview versions – which should also promote the spread of ReFS use outside of companies.

In-Place Upgrades in Windows 11 Preview

There is still little information about the new upgrade option. Twitter user and Windows enthusiast Xeno had discovered that he could do an in-place upgrade, Neowin reports. This has not been offered before, but with Windows 11 Canary Build 25931, it suddenly works. Microsoft has not made any announcements about this yet.

An in-place upgrade ensures that a new version of Windows is installed, but all previously existing applications and settings remain. Previously, such attempts failed when a user switched to ReFS. Now Xeno has shown that it works and published a short video about it:

Interestingly, this isn’t the only advance Microsoft has made in terms of ReFS support in Windows 11. The company also recently updated the version of the file system from the previous version 3.0.9 to version 3.10 and fixed bugs in the restore option on ReFS volumes on the regular patch day of August.

What is ReFS?

Microsoft had already started the Resilient File System, or ReFS for short, with Windows 8 – but initially only for Windows Server. Compared to the New Technology File System (NTFS), ReFS promises, among other things, greater reliability, more performance, and improved support for data sizes (up to 35 PB for ReFS compared to 256 TB for NTFS).

Microsoft has only allowed Windows 11 to be installed on ReFS volumes since early 2023.

Up until now, however, in-place upgrades have not been possible, and a clean reinstallation is the only way to try out Windows on such a file system.