Windows 10 to Windows 11 upgrade

I have learned that Windows 10 will no longer be supported from October 2025. I assume this is to force customers to switch to Windows 11.
The problem is that I bought a refurbished laptop about a year ago and when I checked the system it said that the processor is not supported for Windows 11.
This is a very bad move by Microsoft. Couldn't they create a way for customers to update their machines like they did when they released Windows 10 in 2015?

One or more of these threads may be useful:

Hi, welcome to the forum

If it’s the X555LA and has the Intel® Core™ i7-5500U? The instruction set is SSE4.2 which will support Windows 11 23H2 and more than likely 24H2.
I couldn’t specifically find a X555L but X555LA will.

Not really my specialty though.

Edit: Sorry I found it
Instruction Set Extensions Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
You should be fine.

I'd strongly encourage you to give one of the bypass methods a chance. Windows 11 runs great on older hardware.

The CPUs that were not included as Windows 11 compatible all have known hardware vulnerabilities. In many cases these vulnerabilities are mitigated if you have the latest BIOS update installed, but not everyone actually updates the BIOS in their systems, and for hardware that is more than a few years old, many of those systems don't even receive new BIOS updates anymore.

For any CPU that is "supported", there has to be software mitigations present at the OS level to compensate for vulnerabilities that aren't mitigated at the BIOS level, as well as for new vulnerabilities when they are found. By not "supporting" certain CPUs, Microsoft essentially declines to take responsibility for mitigating the vulnerabilities in those chips at the OS level.

But it's not as dire as that might make it seem. Windows 11 actually runs great on older hardware (after installing or upgrading using a requirments bypass). If you are running the latest BIOS, then you are probably mostly okay in terms of vulnerability mitigations, and Windows 11 does actually include a lot of OS-level mitigations for CPUs that it doesn't even support, due in a large part to code imported from and/or shared with Windows 10, which still supports those CPUs.

The bottom line is, Microsoft really doesn't care if you run Windows 11 on an unsupported system, they just don't want to be blamed (sued) when people get their vulnerable systems compromised. They've made little effort to stop people from bypassing the requirements, because it's pretty obvious at that point that you are proceeding at your own risk.

I will say it again in this thread, a computer unsupported or compliant running Windows 11 with all updates installed is as secure as running Windows 10 64-bit with all updates installed with the same drivers and same configuration. Performance is also the same although I have seen better performance in Windows 11 due probably to better resources management. So just bypass compatibility check and upgrade to Windows 11. Don't hesitate, you won't regret it. Older computers without SSE4.2 support can be upgraded up to Windows 11 23H2 (unless we find a new workaround). All others can be upgraded to 24H2.

antspants said:

Hi, welcome to the forum

If it’s the X555LA and has the Intel® Core™ i7-5500U? The instruction set is SSE4.2 which will support Windows 11 23H2 and more than likely 24H2 by way of the links zbook posted above
I couldn’t specifically find a X555L but X555LA will.

Not really my specialty though.

Edit: Sorry I found it
Instruction Set Extensions Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
You should be fine.

Click to expand...

My X555 is running just fine with 23H2 fully up to date, never a single glitch.

To do a Win 10 upgrade to Win 11 you do a In place upgrade with tweaked Win 11 installation files.
How to upgrade from Win10 or Win 11 to Win 11 23h2 - A guide

Rollback_Jockey said:

My X555 is running just fine with 23H2 fully up to date, never a single glitch.

Click to expand...

Yeah I know that hence posting the SSE4.2 specs. What I didn’t know was how bad my eyesight is getting that warrants me next time zooming in on my phone to properly see what tutorials I am endorsing. Getting old sucks.

antspants said:

Yeah I know that hence posting the SSE4.2 stats. What I didn’t know was how bad my eyesight is getting that warrants me next time zooming in on my phone to properly see what tutorials I am endorsing. Getting old sucks.

Click to expand...

Nah - dying young sucks.

fcatarino said:

I have learned that Windows 10 will no longer be supported from October 2025. I assume this is to force customers to switch to Windows 11.
The problem is that I bought a refurbished laptop about a year ago and when I checked the system it said that the processor is not supported for Windows 11.
This is a very bad move by Microsoft. Couldn't they create a way for customers to update their machines like they did when they released Windows 10 in 2015?

Click to expand...

Deja vu all over again.

Windows 11 was released in October of 2021. Others have complained about this previously.

There are work-arounds: Bypass Windows 11 System Requirements Tutorial

I have 11 installed on a laptop that meets all requirements, except it has an Intel Gen6 CPU. I installed 11 on it using a Registry key. (It was provided by Microsoft. I think that was to allow developers to work with 11 on older hardware.)

MS has hinted that unsupported machines might not receive updates, but so far, that hasn't happened.

It is not trivial since 23H2 (involves an extra step) but it simple enough. You download the Windows 11 ISO, use Rufus to create a USB flash drive with the compatibility check disabled, disconnect form the internet (the extra step) and proceed similarly to upgrading one version of Windows 10 to another. See my earlier post for step-by-step Guide. Upgrading to 24H2 is a little more complicated because of SSE4.2 and PopCnt requirement and mostly because the new Windows bootloader doesn't support booting from Legacy BIOS (aka MBR) disk, only UEFI (aka GPT). This means that all of us with a Legacy BIOS installation must also replace the new bootloader with the 23H2 version in order to boot our system. Any future Windows Update might also replace the old bootloader, so we must keep the 23H2 USB handy and replace as needed.

Sounds familiar? Yes it is, you might remember patching specific system files to bypass compatibility check and force Windows 8.0 32-bit install and run on an unsupported Intel Pentium 4 socket 478. Every update would restore the patched files and render the system unbootable. Once we booted with Windows 7 32-bit DVD (or USB) and repatched the files, it would boot into Windows 8.0 32-bit without any issues using the same Vista/7 32-bit drivers and same applications. With a proper WDDM graphics driver (Vista or newer) performance was almost equal to running Windows 7 32-bit. If there was no WDDM driver for the graphics card, we were stuck with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter (formerly known as Standard VGA adapter) without hardware acceleration and it was much slower than running Windows 7 32-bit with the Windows XP graphics drivers (aka XPDM mode).

bobkn said:

MS has hinted that unsupported machines might not receive updates, but so far, that hasn't happened.

Click to expand...

The issue is, systems that installed Windows 11 using a bypass do not receive new yearly feature updates.

So, for example, if you installed the release version of Windows 11 (21H2) using a bypass, you would have never been offered 22H2 or 23H2 via Windows Update, and you would still be stuck on 21H2, which hit EoL on Oct 10, 2023 and is no longer receiving security updates.

Similarly, if you are running 22H2 or 23H2 using a bypass, you will not be offered 24H2 when it goes live soon, and will instead remain on 22H2/23H2 until 22H2 hits EoL this October or 23H2 hits EoL on Nov 11, 2025.

Of course, at any point, you can simply do an in-place upgrade to the newest version / feature update. You will need to use a bypass again every time you do this, and you will need to do this basically once per year (every time a new feature update is released) in order to stay current. The only exception being the transition between 22H2 and 23H2 which can be done using a tiny enablement package since they essentially synchronized those two releases. Even this still has to be done manually, and is not offered via Windows Update.

It is a minor inconvenience in order to use Windows 11 on our old unsupported systems. Not really a big deal since it is once a year. All other updates install without any compatibility check.

GotNoRice said:

The issue is, systems that installed Windows 11 using a bypass do not receive new yearly feature updates.

(snip)

Click to expand...

I admit I've never noticed that.

I have a tendency to not wait for Windows Update to do its thing, regardless. The feature updates tend to be rolled out over a period.

bobkn said:

Déjà vu novamente.

O Windows 11 foi lançado em outubro de 2021. Outros já reclamaram disso anteriormente.

Existem soluções alternativas: Tutorial para ignorar os requisitos de sistema do Windows 11

Tenho o 11 instalado em um laptop que atende a todos os requisitos, exceto que tem uma CPU Intel Gen6. Eu instalei o 11 nele usando uma chave do Registro. (Foi fornecido pela Microsoft. Acho que era para permitir que os desenvolvedores trabalhassem com o 11 em hardware mais antigo.)

A MS deu a entender que máquinas sem suporte podem não receber atualizações, mas até agora isso não aconteceu.

Click to expand...

Obrigado pelas sugestões. Por enquanto, vou esperar até outubro de 2025, que é quando o suporte ao Windows 10 termina. Mas pelo que vi nas notícias, a Microsoft já bloqueou um dos métodos que permitiam a instalação do Windows 11 em computadores mais antigos.

@fcatarino all posts must be in English or include an English translation.

fcatarino said:

Thank you for the suggestions. For now, I'll wait until October 2025, which is when Windows 10 support ends. But from what I saw in the news, Microsoft has already blocked one of the methods that allowed the installation of Windows 11 on older computers.

Click to expand...

Be careful where you get your “News” from. Upgrading on unsupported PC’s is very basic.

I don't know about Insider's 24H2 versions, but I have tested and confirmed myself, up to Windows 23H2 all known methods work to install Windows 11 on unsupported computers. 23H2 has the additional requirement to disconnect from the internet when upgrading from earlier versions or from Windows 10. For clean installation the methods are modifying certain keys in Registry either manually or using a script, creating a patched USB for drive with Rufus, use the setup /product server command. Another workaround is to create a hybrid Windows 10/11 USB flash drive to use the Windows 10 Setup that doesn't check compatibility to install Windows 11. In 23H2 this workaround only works for Legacy BIOS (MBR) installation. To upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 or from earlier Windows 11 versions to 23H2 you must download the ISO and disconnect from the internet. Then you either create a patched USB flash drive with Rufus and start Setup from there, or you replace a certain hidden file from Setup cache with an empty dummy. To switch from 22H2 to 23H2 you can also install the 23H2 Enablement Package which doesn't check compatibility.

spapakons said:

23H2 has the additional requirement to disconnect from the internet when upgrading from earlier versions or from Windows 10.

Click to expand...

spapakons said:

To upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 or from earlier Windows 11 versions to 23H2 you must download the ISO and disconnect from the internet.

Click to expand...

I've never had a need to disconnect from the internet when upgrading an install using a bypass. What error are you getting if you keep the internet connected?

Would this unsupported laptop be upgradable?

Device name admin
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5600U CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
Device ID 1BD0994A-1A06-4973-95CE-EC7C8C662513
Product ID 00330-50000-00000-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

Edition Windows 10 Pro
Version 22H2
Installed on ‎1/‎24/‎2023
OS build 19045.4780
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19060.1000.0




And what about updates?