Solved Stuck on 21H2 and can't seem to update to 23H2

Hazel123 said:

Got it sorted. It was antivirus blocking it. I right clicked on that last file and chose run as administrator. Turning off Norton didn't work so I downloaded it on a different laptop that just had defender on it and defender gave you the option to "run anyway"

Only thing is I now want to move the iso file from that laptop to my other laptop and it says it's too big to fit on a 30gb usb stick. The iso says it's 4.4gb! I have burned it to usb but like to save the iso's all together on my main laptop. I could download it again on my main laptop but it would mean completely uninstalling antivirus - turning it off didn't work.

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I presume that the USB drive is formatted as FAT32. The largest file size for that is 4GB.

Format it as NTFS. (Maybe ExFat, but I've never used that.) The downside is that some MBs require Fat32 to boot from a USB drive.

bobkn said:

I presume that the USB drive is formatted as FAT32. The largest file size for that is 4GB.

Format it as NTFS. (Maybe ExFat, but I've never used that.) The downside is that some MBs require Fat32 to boot from a USB drive.

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Thanks - yes just did that Formatted the usb to ntfs and it copied ok.

Incidentally I just found it's now possible to format Fat32 directly when the drive is ntfs - how long has that been the case? Before you could only format to Ex Fat after NTFS (and then I used to convert it to Fat 32 after).

This should be from some version of Windows 10 onwards and in all Windows 11 versions.

Thanks - unbelievable it took so long for them to change that. I remember a story or video about it by the guy who made the format software a long time ago and saying it was very hard to change. It must be quite recent as I did it at some point last year and the option wasn't there.

Hazel123 said:

I formatted the usb to ntfs and then the iso copied to it ok.

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Darn, I wanted to tell you that you needed to use NTFS.

Hazel123 said:

Thanks - unbelievable it took so long for them to change that. I remember a story or video about it by the guy who made the format software a long time ago and saying it was very hard to change. It must be quite recent as I did it at some point last year and the option wasn't there.

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That's why we used third-party utilities back then, such as Minitool Partition Wizard.

I've always used Ridgecrop Consultants Fat 32 formatter Don't need it now. It was very useful.

Even today all new USB flash drives come preformatted to FAT32 so they can be used at any OS and device. Bad for video though, some PVRs divide the video in 4GB files, but since they can also use NTFS formatted disks, I would rather format to NTFS and get a single large file for every recording.

Hazel123 said:

Incidentally I just found it's now possible to format Fat32 directly when the drive is ntfs - how long has that been the case? Before you could only format to Ex Fat after NTFS (and then I used to convert it to Fat 32 after).

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I just tried it with a 128GB Verbatim Thumb drive and still don't get the option for FAT32, only NTFS and exFAT.

Interesting. Is this on Windows 11? Mine was a 32gb usb stick.

Berton said:

I just tried it with a 128GB Verbatim Thumb drive and still don't get the option for FAT32, only NTFS and exFAT.

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Hazel123 said:

Interesting. Is this on Windows 11? Mine was a 32gb usb stick.

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Microsoft have always had a maximum limit of 32GB for Fat32 partitions. This has been an artificial limit, Fat32 can handle larger partitions. No one knows why MS have stuck with this limit for so long....

Microsoft is lifting a decades-old restriction on Windows that capped FAT32 disk formatting at 32GB. Instead, FAT32 formatting on Windows 11 will support partitions up to 2TB in size.

The company is increasing the limits first in a beta version of Windows 11, specifically the Build 27686 preview release for the Canary channel.

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[Storage]​

• When formatting disks from the command line using the format command, we’ve increased the FAT32 size limit from 32GB to 2TB.

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Thanks Bree.

Hello, I have one lenovo notebook, with Windows 11 Home, version Build 22000.2538.
The windows updated do not want to update it.
Yesterday I updated it manually to Build 22000.2600, but it didn't help much. I cannot install next updates.
What is the best way to update windows to 22H2?
As I understood i need got one by one, 21H2 => 22H2 => 23H2 => 24H2
I cannot just update to 24H2?

Mastahh said:

Hello, I have one lenovo notebook, with Windows 11 Home, version Build 22000.2538.
The windows updated do not want to update it.
Yesterday I updated it manually to Build 22000.2600, but it didn't help much. I cannot install next updates.
What is the best way to update windows to 22H2?
As I understood i need got one by one, 21H2 => 22H2 => 23H2 => 24H2
I cannot just update to 24H2?

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First check your CPU with CPU-Z. If you see SSE4.2 in the supported instructions, then you can bypass compatibility check and upgrade to 24H2 and 25H2. You will be able to also upgrade to 26H2 this October as rumors say it will have the same hardware requirements as 24H2/25H2.

If your CPU is older without SSE4.2 support, you can bypass compatibility check and upgrade up to 23H2.

In any case, after upgrading you should be able to download all Windows updates since they don't check compatibility. Of course you won't be offered the upgrade to a newer Windows 11 version for an unsupported system. You need to manually download the respective ISO and bypass compatibility check.

That said, you can upgrade from Windows 10 64-bit or from any older Windows 11 version, including 21H2 directly to 25H2 (or 23H2 for older CPUs) by using the ISO and bypassing compatibility check. You don't have to upgrade to the previous versions until you reach the target version.

For 23H2 you can delete a specific file from Windows Setup cache (temporary folder) to bypass compatibility check. For 24H2 and 25H2 this workaround no longer works, so you can mount the ISO (open with File Explorer) and run this command to bypass compatibility check. It also works for 23H2:

D:\setup /product server

where D: is the drive letter of the virtual DVD-ROM drive when you mount the ISO. Replace as appropriate. As a precaution I recommend to disconnect from the internet and stay offline during the whole upgrade. This is to prevent Windows Update installing anything in the backround including drivers which can cause BSOD. Also I noticed a hidden online compatibility check that makes the upgrade fail at about 75% before even restarting, so stay offline. To be on the safe side, I also disable all startup applications and any non-Microsoft services. I also disconnect all peripherals (printers, scanners, gamepads) and disable unneeded devices, such as LAN, WiFi, sound, Bluetooth, to prevent Setup trying to mess with their perfectly working drivers.

Mastahh said:

Hello, I have one lenovo notebook, with Windows 11 Home, version Build 22000.2538. The windows updated do not want to update it.
Yesterday I updated it manually to Build 22000.2600, but it didn't help much. I cannot install next updates.
What is the best way to update windows to 22H2? As I understood i need got one by one, 21H2 => 22H2 => 23H2 => 24H2
I cannot just update to 24H2?

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Welcome to Eleven Forum.

If, as I suspect, this is an unsupported device then you will not be offered the upgrade to the next version in Windows Update. You would need to do an in-place upgrade with an ISO and a workaround to bypass the checks.



Yes, you can upgrade in one step straight to the latest version your Lenovo can run. As spapakons points out, whether that's 23H2 or 24H2 and above depends on whether or not the CPU has the SSE4.2 instruction set.

We'd need to know the exact model name and processor of your Lenovo to give a definitive answer.

Hint: If it is any Intel Core-i3 or higher, even first generation or equivalent AMD it can be upgraded to 24H2 and 25H2. If it is same generation Intel Celeron or Pentium, it depends, not all early models had SSE4.2 instructions. In any case confirm with CPU-Z before upgrading.


In all versions, 23H2, 24H2 and 25H2 you can bypass compatibility check by using the "server" parameter, see my previous reply. This forces Setup to load in "server" mode. When installing any Windows Server version it doesn't check compatibility. Of course it will upgrade Windows 11 Home or Pro since these are the versions included in the ISO. It won't install any Server version. Some argue that using the "server" parameter might not install some features. This isn't true, it will install all the available features and if anything is missing you can always add/enable it later.