As per the latest report from Deskmodder, the next major version of Windows 11, 24H2 (also known as the 2024 update), may enable BitLocker encryption by default during the installation process, and this seems to affect multiple Windows 11 versions.
The site noticed the change while testing installing Windows 11 24H2 using the newly designed installer, and thankfully users can disable Device Encryption in the Privacy & Security section of Settings.
Windows 11 24H2 brings an improved installer. The new installation process no longer starts with a “blue window” but is similar to an in-place upgrade, except that BitLocker encryption of the drive may be performed in the background during the new installation process.
BitLocker to encrypt drives is not new on Windows 11 computers, and some OEMs have already implemented this practice on professional edition machines. Of note, there are reports that the default software-based BitLocker encryption on Windows (XTS-AES 128) can cause significant performance degradation even on some of the fastest SSDs, such as PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs. Furthermore, unsuspecting users may be completely unaware that their device is encrypted, and if the key is lost or not saved correctly, the encrypted data may not be recovered.
