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If your Windows PC was bought before 2019 and it runs Windows 10, you may have had this message come up when it was doing its automatic updates:
“This PC doesn’t currently meet the minimum system requirements to run Windows 11”.
Then running the “PC Health Check” it says my Intel Core i7-7700HQ is not supported. I assumed I would have to buy a new PC before October 2025 when Windows 10 end-of-life support is turned off. But I’ve discovered that this message is very misleading and not understood by most, including me and it has been mis-reported by most of the press.
Most PCs bought from mid-2015 onwards can officially be upgraded to Windows 11, but Microsoft tries to hide it. And the news stories that millions if not billions of PC’s will have to be scrapped are scaremongering. Here is why. The minimum specification for Windows 11 is:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/win ... 74389a7ba3
Briefly, the minimum specification is 1GHz with 2 cores, 4MB RAM, 64GB HD, UEFI boot (and enabled)/Secure Boot, TPM V2.0, DirectX 12 graphics card (or integral with the processor), minimum monitor resolution 1280x720 8-bit colour and you have to have a Microsoft account.
Every HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Lenovo and other major brands PCs and laptops from mid-2015 onwards meet those requirements and some older ones as well. The cut-off point is 2015 when TPM 2.0 was finalised and started appearing in mainstream PCs, but some manufacturers had pre-empted this and fitted the draft/proposed TPM 2.0 in 2013.
Most of the below is based on this article:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-up ... indows-11/
When the Windows 10 update says you have an unsupported processor, what they are really saying is that it does not meet their "recommended specification" which is an Intel Generation 8” processor (released in 2017/18) onwards or the equivalent AMD. Therefore they are not offering the automatic upgrade to Windows 11. But as long as you meet the minimum specification and your PC runs Windows 10, then it can be upgraded to Windows 11.
Microsoft's reasoning for them recommending later-generation processors is interesting. On their website, they justify the need for a Gen8 processor or later using statistics that show Intel Gen 8 processors can run their tests 99.8% without a crash while they say that Gen 7 processors are 50% worse. But that is playing with statistics. The Gen5 and Gen6 Intel processors run the tests 99.7% without crashing. Most would call that 0.1% worse, not 50% worse… And it isn’t based on the processor speed as an Intel i7 Gen7 (not supported) scores better benchmarks in most tests than an Intel i5 Gen8 (supported).
If your PC meets the minimum specification there are two ways to upgrade. The first method needs you to edit the registry. Warning, do a backup first as if you do the wrong registry edit you can brick your PC. But it isn’t that difficult to do. The official Microsoft Support Document is here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... e77ac7c70e
Briefly, it tells you to edit a registry key, below is the detailed description that they omitted.
Open Registry Editor (Regedit.exe), just type Regedit into the search box to find it. Note you may have to run as an administrator to make changes in Regedit. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup
If the MoSetup key, doesn't exist, you need to create it. Right-click the node for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup in the left-hand navigation pane, then choose New > Key. Name it MoSetup and press Enter.
Select the MoSetup key and then right-click in any empty space in the pane on the right. Choose the option to create a new DWORD value. (Don't choose the QWORD option!)
Replace the default name for that key by typing the text AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU and then press Enter. Then double-click the new value and change the "Value data" box to 1. The result should look like this:
Click OK to save your change, and then restart your PC. At the next update will offer the Windows 11 update (or you can click check for updates in the settings to do it near immediately).
Alternatively, you can upgrade with a Windows 11 .iso file (or a DVD if you still have an DVD drive). Before beginning remember to update all your files! On the PC you want to upgrade, go to the Windows 11 Download page
https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11
Choose the option at the bottom of the page, "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices." Save the ISO file in your Downloads folder or wherever you can find it.
This is a big file and depending on the speed of your internet connection, the download could take a while.
After the download completes, open File Explorer and double-click the ISO file. Doing so mounts the file as a virtual DVD drive in its own folder. In File Explorer, find the Setup.exe file and double-click it to begin the upgrade. You'll see a stern warning about compatibility issues, but after you click OK on that dialogue box, your upgrade should proceed without any serious issues. You'll have three options: you can keep your apps, settings, and files (Full Upgrade); keep your data files but start fresh with apps and settings (Keep Data Only); or start completely fresh (Clean Install). Usually, you would do a “Full Upgrade”, but if you want a clean install it is up to you. Linx Mint is open source and free to install and use, updates are free as well, and it is a community-based Linux distribution.
So next October 2025 when Windows 10 end-of-life support is discontinued, it will only be PCs, 10 years or older (at that time) that may not be able to be upgraded to Windows 11. If you have an older PC it is probably time to either buy a new PC or install Linux that will continue to support the older hardware (for free) and probably feel faster as well.
I had an old HP HP Pavilion G6 (bought in 2012 I think) in my cupboard. Its specification was Intel Pentium 2.0GHz, 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM running Windows 10 slowly, it came with Windows 7. It would not meet Windows 11 minimum specification as it only has TPM 1.2. I could have updated it to Windows 11 if I had used an undocumented (by Microsoft) method and used Rufus, but I thought I’d try Linux. I had previously used Ubuntu but had heard good reports on Linux Mint and I’d seen this article so I thought I would give it a go:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-re ... n-your-pc/
Linux Mint Cinnamon was installed without a problem and straight away there were icons for LibreOffice (the equivalent of Microsoft Office) and Firefox which was great as I already use those on my regular PC. It has Xreader as an Acrobat Reader alternative that seemed to work well. My Kyocera network-enabled printer was supported using the Ubuntu drivers and it printed a .docx Word documents from LibreOffice properly formatted, but installing the printer was not as easy as Windows 10 where the printer is automatically discovered and the driver installed.
In the old days, installing programs and apps on Linux was a challenge for anybody coming over from Windows, but not so much now. Mint has a great “Software Manager” and I installed Arduino and KiCAD from the list, both working seamlessly. Now the interesting thing is, the Arduino IDE compiles the same sketch slightly faster on this 2012 PC than on my 3-year-old Intel i7 PC running Windows 10. In fact this 10+ year old PC felt as spritely as a new Windows PC. The other “must have” programs for me are my Logic Analyser and digital scope software, Photoshop and a 2D CAD. The logic analyser software is available for Linux, but only as a tarball, so it took a few minutes longer for me to install, but it looked and worked identically to that on my Windows PC. The scope software was “Windows only”, but after a bit of messing around I got it running under “Wine” (a Windows emulator layer to run Windows programs in Linux). And Gimp is a good replacement for Photoshop. I’m still looking for a good Linux CAD program though, I guess I’ll need to try my existing AutoCAD under Wine.
So I now have a “fully up-to-date” 12-year-old PC that feels as fast as a top-end 3-year-old Windows PC. Well, it did until I tried editing a video … that is very processor intensive and it was very slow! But for a PC that would have probably found its way to the recycling dump for most owners, I have a very useable PC that can do almost everything a brand-new PC can do (except video editing and games), is supported for years to come, doesn’t need anti-virus and cost nothing but a bit of time. If only schools used Linux, Microsoft Windows would slowly become irrelevant. You can see why Microsoft does educational licences for schools, colleges, universities and students, it is a “loss-leader”, they get you hooked while you are at school, and then you pay the Microsoft tax later at work and home.