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HP Recommended
Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit)

Hi,

 

I have an HP Z600, and want to upgrade to Windows 11 on it, below is the full specification:

 

Overview
Computer model: Hewlett-Packard HP Z600 Workstation
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (10.0, Build 19045)
Processor1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5670 @ 2.93GHz 6/12
Processor2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5670 @ 2.93GHz 6/12
Motherboard: Hewlett-Packard 0B54h
RAM: 48.0 GB
Hard disk1: KINGSTON SA400S37240G (223.6 GB/Fixed hard disk media)
Hard disk2: Hitachi HUA723020ALA641 (1.8 TB/Fixed hard disk media)
Graphics card: NVIDIA Quadro K2200 (4 GB)
Monitor1: Samsung S24D330 (1920x1080 / 24 Inch)
Monitor2: Samsung S24D330 (1920x1080 / 24 Inch)
Monitor3: Samsung SAMSUNG (1920x1080 / 31.5 Inch)
Sound card1: Microsoft High Definition Audio Device
Sound card2: (Generic USB Audio) USB Audio Device
Sound card3: (Generic USB Audio) USB Audio Device
Sound card4: NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Keyboard1: Standard PS/2 Keyboard
Keyboard2: HID Keyboard Device
Mice1: Razer DeathAdder V2
Mice2: PS/2 Compatible Mouse
Audio1: High Definition Audio Device
Audio2: USB 2.0 Camera
Audio3: TKGOU PnP USB Microphone
Audio4: NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Camera: USB Camera

 

How can I upgrade this computer to Windows 11??  It says the hardware is not compatible when I run the Microsoft checker.

 

Many Thanks,

Pete

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

I have used my "hybrid" method posted here in the past to upgrade both a Z400 v2 and a Z600 v2 to W11 22H2. Of interest the Z600 has both the HP Texas Instruments based PCIe card to provide USB3 speeds, and also a Kingston HyperX Predator AHCI controller M.2 PCIe card installed. I posted on both of those upgrades in detail here in the past... the key to getting the Kingston Predator M.2 PCIe card to work was use of a specific storage controller package that HP provides on their driver page for these ZX00 workstations. That approach gave me the equivalent of SATAIII SSD drive speeds on these SATAII workstations.

 

With those modifications I was concerned that the in-place upgrade might fail, but the conversion from W7Pro64 to W10Pro64 went well, and then the in-place upgrade to W11 22H2 succeeded also. I have not yet used Paul's Rufus-based upgrade technique but started my work on my method based on his successes earlier.

 

I always make sure to upgrade a workstation to the very latest W10pro64, confirm that there are no missing drivers via Device Manager, do a full cleanup of the install, and carefully follow my method. I've gotten that down to a thumb drive carrying both the slightly modified W11 22H2 install and the tiny CMD app one uses first to prepare the current install for an in-place upgrade. We're now over 50 HP/non-HP laptops and workstations upgraded this way to W11 22H2.

 

I'd use Paul's technique if I was you and agree that things will work well.

View solution in original post

10 REPLIES 10
HP Recommended

Hi, Pete:

 

There are no hardware upgrades you can do to that PC in order to make it Microsoft W11-supported.

 

If you are interested in installing W11 on your PC as is, you can read this discussion for how I upgraded several HP and Dell notebook and desktop PC's that did not meet the W11 hardware requirements to W11 22H2.

 

Re: Issues upgrading to windows 11 - HP Support Community - 8517912

 

If the in-place upgrade fails, you should be able to clean install W11 using the bootable W11 installation flash drive you made with Rufus.

 

HP Recommended

Thank you, Paul,

 

I'll try that closer to the time. If it doesn't work I could always go over to linux and use 'WINE'

 

I just think its really bad that Microsoft is making people throw away perfectly good computers!

HP Recommended

You're very welcome.

 

I upgraded all of my unsupported W11 PC's and notebooks to W11, because I have no intention of throwing my perfectly good PC's away.

 

It was quick and easy.

 

I can all but guarantee you a clean install will work if the in-place upgrade doesn't.

HP Recommended

I have used my "hybrid" method posted here in the past to upgrade both a Z400 v2 and a Z600 v2 to W11 22H2. Of interest the Z600 has both the HP Texas Instruments based PCIe card to provide USB3 speeds, and also a Kingston HyperX Predator AHCI controller M.2 PCIe card installed. I posted on both of those upgrades in detail here in the past... the key to getting the Kingston Predator M.2 PCIe card to work was use of a specific storage controller package that HP provides on their driver page for these ZX00 workstations. That approach gave me the equivalent of SATAIII SSD drive speeds on these SATAII workstations.

 

With those modifications I was concerned that the in-place upgrade might fail, but the conversion from W7Pro64 to W10Pro64 went well, and then the in-place upgrade to W11 22H2 succeeded also. I have not yet used Paul's Rufus-based upgrade technique but started my work on my method based on his successes earlier.

 

I always make sure to upgrade a workstation to the very latest W10pro64, confirm that there are no missing drivers via Device Manager, do a full cleanup of the install, and carefully follow my method. I've gotten that down to a thumb drive carrying both the slightly modified W11 22H2 install and the tiny CMD app one uses first to prepare the current install for an in-place upgrade. We're now over 50 HP/non-HP laptops and workstations upgraded this way to W11 22H2.

 

I'd use Paul's technique if I was you and agree that things will work well.

HP Recommended

Thank you both,

 

I have put the email alert in my outlook keep folder so it's easy to find later when I have a spare Saturday. I'll be in touch if I have any problems, plus I'll update this post when I have successfully upgraded to W11.

HP Recommended

I see "Of interest the Z600 has both the HP Texas Instruments based PCIe card to provide USB3 speeds, and also a Kingston HyperX Predator AHCI controller M.2 PCIe card installed." Meaning you installed 2 additional cards??? Did you disable anything in bios as well. I happen to have a LSI 9750-4i Raid Controller in mine and it should be compatible, but is not making the upgrade Wizard happy. 😞  My Z600 wants to live longer 🙂 It's just a wee lad...

HP Recommended

Smear,

 

Sorry, I missed your post. Hopefully you'll see this 1.5 months later. If you use my upgrade method I've noted that it is best to first make sure every device in Device Manager is running with no missing drivers under W10Pro64. I don't have any experience with that LSI card but DGroves likely has some input on that. I did not disable anything in BIOS IRRC but would be happy to PM you a copy of my Z600 v2 BIOS settings. The Predator has a bit of software which I have copies of.

 

I too like the Z600 still. Specifically the Z600 v2. I just upgraded two I had on the shelves to W11 22H2 Moment 2 which came out officially this Patch Tuesday, yesterday.

 

You read that right. In the one I'm quite proud of, a third, I've updated that also to the same very recent W11 version. That has the Predator PCIe card in it, plus the HP Texas Instruments based card that gives it USB3 speeds. Let's go over those three major upgrades:

 

1. W11 22H2...

See my post HERE on page 2 about the "hybrid" method I use. That is long winded partly because I evolved that method over the run of the thread. What I now do is have a USB3 thumb drive with 2 things on it. The slightly modified Microsoft W11 .iso download in a folder, and the little critical utility that lets it all work (from the Belgium computer genius). I get a W10 build all cleaned up and updated and then run that little utility and then run the setup.exe from the .iso folder, as described in that post. I've done this with now over 50 HP workstations... very reliable and handy with only a few button pushes to the end point.

 

2. To get USB3 speeds the 4-port "2x2" TI based HP card needs to be in a PCIe generation 2 slot. For the Z600 I use the very top slot 1. A very detailed post on this upgrade can be found via google as an archived post from this forum. That is pretty easy to find via google but not via our forum's search feature. Adding in a front 2-port 5.25" bay access is nice, as I show in that post, but another approach is to just use a USB3 extension from one of the two ports on the card's rear backplane and forgo having a total of 4 USB3 ports. I like the StarTech heavy 5' one USB3SEXT5DSK and make sure to get USB3 because they also made USB2 ones. The black USB3 one is nicest if of the same form factor but they made a cheaper lighter version of this too. Full USB3 speed is gotten this way. A HP engineer we miss very much explained that when the ZX00 goes to sleep it drops a 3.3VDC charge that results in the USB3 thumb drive not being seen upon wake if it was in place before sleep. You just have to pull it and plug it back in. Small price to pay... HP engineered around that issue in the ZX20 workstations. The best link to my method is HERE,

 

3. The Predator info is out there too. It is based on a special Kingston AHCI-controller M.2 form factor stick on a PCIe2 card. On a Z600 I run that in the lower PCIe2 x16 slot. This actually gets you the equivalent of SATAIII speeds in my experience, and I assume you know the ZX00s are all only SATAII workstations. So that was a worthwhile project. My breakthroughs usually result from a combination of trial and error, and some intuition.

 

This breakthrough came by recognizing that the blue screen crashes I was getting initially were only after the system had started loading drivers. I recognized that HP offered two storage controller driver SoftPaqs for these workstations and tried the one I had not been using. That was the key... either set would drive SSDs fine but only that second one would also allow a SSD build to be cloned as a bootable drive over onto the Predator. That was the breakthrough...to do the build onto a SSD first, use Acronis to capture that image, and then clone it onto the Predator via Acronis.

 

What really amazed me is that I had this all running for years under W7Pro64 and just recently took the leap, expecting to have to switch over to a SSD, and reload everything from scratch and stick with the SSD. I upgraded straight from the W7 Predator build to W10Pro64, tuned that all up with no major changes, and then went straight on to use my hybrid W10 to W11 22H2 upgrade method... and the Predator kept working. That was a few months ago, and it is still running strong with zero issues. That build also upgraded fine yesterday to W11Pro64 22H2 Moment 2. Search with google for "predator on Z600" and you'll find some of our posts from the past. The best one is HERE .

 

Again, our current search via this forum won't find these older posts but the google knows...

HP Recommended

Hello, this is a very easy task to accomplish, believe me. I'm running Windows 11 Pro for Workstations on my V2 HP Z600 with 48 GB RAM, dual E5645 xeons, GTX 1050Ti, Creative Labs Audigy 2Zs, and 13TB storage divided on 4 hard drives.

All you have to do is download the latest Windows 11 image from Microsoft. I'm currently using the latest 22H2 version.

I strongly recomend using the windows ISO downloader tool for doing so: 

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-and-office-iso-downl...

After that, download the RUFUS Bootable USB utility:

https://rufus.ie

You need a USB drive. I keep an 8GB USB thumbdrive with the latest windows version all the time.

Before flashing your USB thumbdrive, on the advanced options section, select the options to disable system compatibility check. After all, the HP Z600 will never be compatible according to Microsoft specs because of its TPM version.  Just disable that check and it will allow you to do a full clean install with no problems at all.

I strongly reccomend installing Windows 11 Pro for Workstations.

Once done, activate your new windows install and enjoy!

HP Recommended

you can bypass the Windows 11 upgrade verification to upgrade the Windows 11 Pro, if you need a windows 11 product key, you can get it from keyingo.com with a good price

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