Good day to all my clients (Computer and Website clients)
By now, if you haven’t got a brand new laptop that runs on Windows 11, you’ll no doubt have received the alarming message that your Windows no longer receives updates, it is ‘End of life’ and that you need to upgrade your Windows 10 to Windows 11 now.
Furthermore, if your computer is more than say 5 years old, Windows won’t let you upgrade, due to minimum hardware requirements not met.
To see if your computer meets Windows 11 requirements, go to Settings – Updates – follow the PC health check links, or download this: https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp – run it and see what they say.
If you don’t meet the requirements, you’ll need to consider the following options:
So what are your options?
1) Do nothing
Windows 10 will run just fine for another 10 years (don’t quote me) without updates (you’re probably better off with my experience of people losing everything through updates…).
Just make sure you have a good anti-virus system, your routers and your computer have their Firewalls activated, don’t ever click on suspicious links, don’t fall for emails that threaten to suspend you on something if you don’t click on a link and log in, etc. Be Internet-wise.
2) Buy a new computer
A no-brainer, always good to have the latest technology with the latest security for today’s cyber presence. Obviously your budget needs to be approved for this, and you’ll need to reinstall all your programs – there are upgrade paths from Windows 10 to Windows 11, but my research has shown that it’s better to install again, start afresh – a great time to cleanup, start anew, teach yourself something new!
I can set up and reinstall your new computer, just need to check what you have running and quote you on the hours required.
3) Upgrade to Windows 11 despite Microsoft blocking you from upgrading.
I have upgraded a 2010 1st Generation Core I5 laptop from Windows 10 to Windows 11 successfully, despite not meeting Windows 11 minimum requirements. It’s completely possible and viable, and a 1st Generation laptop is pretty old.
Is it worth it? I think it is, the hardware requirement of Windows 11 are not terribly more than Windows 10, I would recommend running on an SSD (I can upgrade your laptop) and I won’t do an upgrade on a machine with less than 8Gig Ram. Apart from that, if your laptop is newer than 1st generation core, you can upgrade to Windows 11 – there are a couple of hardware and software pre-requisites you need to check for first, because Windows 11 simply will not run if these are not met.
I’m going to give you the procedure to upgrade your own laptop to Windows 11 for free, and then offer my services to do it for you, and a cost of 2 man-hours, which comes to R760.
So how can you do it yourself?
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The pre-reqs
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The minimum requirements for Windows 11 are a 1 GHz or faster processor with two or more cores on a compatible 64-bit processor, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, UEFI with Secure Boot capability, and a DirectX 12 compatible graphics card with a WDDM 2.0 driver. A compatible 64-bit processor is the absolute minimum, with TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and UEFI being preferred for a full installation.
The above is the official Microsoft specification to upgrade to Windows 11. The above really requires a laptop that is only 5 years old approx. My 7th generation laptop is 8 years old, runs perfectly, and does not meet the Windows 10 requirements – officially. I actually don’t intend to upgrade this laptop soon.
I’m going to give you the technical real-world minimum requirements to upgrade to Windows 11, and show you how to do it.
Your compatibility checklist
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1st generation core Intel cpu – anything newer should be fine, but lets get more technical. (if you have AMD or such, it gets more complicated – I can research this for you)
Download coreinfo from https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/coreinfo.html – download, extract and run coreinfo.exe
Check for POPCNT (Population Count) and SSE 4.2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2) – Windows 11 won’t run without these. My 1st generation I5 meets these requirements
Windows 10 – make sure you have updated to version 22H2, this is required to upgrade to Windows 11. Go do your final windows updates, it will still work even though there are big warnings saying your computer can’t do updates anymore due to end-of-life.
DirectX version 12 – this should be present with the latest version of Windows 10 – run ‘dxdiag’ from the command prompt and check for version 12.
64-bit processor – right-click – ‘This PC’ and scroll down to check that you have a 64-bit processor – just about all CPU’s are 64-bit.
TPM 1.2 – we can do with 1.2 not 2.0 – press Windows key + R, type tpm.msc, and press Enter – wait a bit and then look for TPM 1.2 or TPM 2.0 (much newer machines)
8 Gigs of RAM – you CAN do with 4 Gigs, but it’s going to kill you waiting for apps to open, let’s set 8 Gigs as minimum.
SSD? Windows 11 will be ok on a mechanical hard drive, but FLY on an SSD. You’ve already seen my proposal for my very successful SSD upgrade – R760 + SSD cost.
WDDM 2.0, Secure Boot – my 1st generation does not have secure boot, and only WDDM 1.1, running Windows 11 happily. let’s not worry about these.
You MUST be the main admin on the computer, if not, go to the person who installed and request this.
Ok, passed all the requirements up to here? let’s upgrade to Windows 11.
1) Clone your hard drive
You need to clone your existing Windows 10 installation on a separate hard drive, so that if you mess up the upgrade, you can fall back to this hard drive.
– Buy a good 2nd-hand hard drive for your laptop or computer – FB marketplace or similar. Good time to get an SSD
– Buy an enclosure for the hard drive that you plug in to a USB port
– Download Disk Genius (free), connect the hard drive, and CAREFULLY run the System Migrate (better ask me the steps)
– Once successful (good check for bad errors on your hard drive), keep this hard drive safe
Don’t ignore this step.
2) Download Windows 11
Go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11, scroll down to the ISO download, select the multi-os option, confirm, then select the English US language, then confirm and download. The download is about 7Gb – check that you have enough data.
3) Once the ISO has downloaded, you’re ready to upgrade.
Check your preparation steps above – all requirements met?
You have say 64 Gig space on your hard drive free for the installation?
Close all apps, save documents.
Ensure your computer is plugged in to power.
You DID do the clone, right?
Right-click on the ISO file, and select ‘Mount’ – this will open the installation files. Navigate to ‘Sources’
Type ‘CMD’ in the navigation bar (where the path to the ISO is found) – this will open a command prompt.
Type: setupprep.exe /product server – don’t worry about the ‘Server’ part, we are bypassing the official minimum requirements, your installation will match your current Windows 10 version (Home, Pro etc)
If all goes well, Windows 11 will now install, give it some time, and it will reboot a few times. it won’t work if the minimum requirements I have listed are not met.
4) Successful upgrade – go do all your checks.
– Reboot a couple of times to ensure the installation is successful
– Check your Windows activation status, check your MS Office activation state
– Check all your data and programs
– Perform a hard disk cleanup, do a defrag (HDD) or a Trim (SSD)
– Check your anti-virus
5) Not successful – fall back
– Pop your cloned hard drive into your computer, all will be back to normal
– Do the complete procedure again, make sure you’re meeting all the requirements
If all else fails, you’ll need to stick with Windows 10, or purchase a new laptop.
I have researched and compiled this for free, hope you can use it. DISCLAIMER: As with many upgrades, anything can go wrong, I do not accept any liability for any failures – the hard drive clone step is critical before attempting an upgrade.
I can perform this upgrade for you at a cost of R760 (2 man-hours) IF your hardware supports this – I’ll run the checks remotely. I will perform a hard drive clone as well to protect your Windows and Data, but please note my DISCLAIMER.
It’s important to consider that Microsoft wants to force us to upgrade to their latest software, and are in cohorts with hardware manufacturers, so they will continually try to force you to upgrade, and one day the above procedure will not work, so my DISCLAIMER includes the possibility that one day your (old) computer will not run Windows 11 anymore.
All the best
Ian