Upgrade 2011 Z420 to be able to run Win 11

[TomBootyman]

Good Evening All,

Win 10 support has ended. MS tells me that my computer will not take Win 11. I have no idea what the issue preventing this is.

I have a z420 which I bought in 2011. I have regularly upgraded memory and hard drives - 32GB memory, 480GB SSD for operating system, two mirrored 5TB HD for data storage.
I am certainly not an expert but am comfortable going into BIOS. I don't shake when holding a screwdriver.... 🙂

Is it a realistic proposition for me to buy a new motherboard and processor, PSU and graphics card to breath life into my 420? I want to run an up to date version of Photoshop for editing 24MB photos with several layers.

I am not interested in video editing or gaming.

Is this the right place to find kind soul(s) who might point me in the right direction or do I need to be looking somewhere else?

Or do I just take a deep breath, recocognise that I've had 14 good years out of my 420 and mend it with a new one?

Kind regards

Tom

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Tom:

There are no hardware upgrades you can do to your PC to have it meet Microsoft's minimum W11 processor requirements or TPM 2.0 support.

The good news is if you are interested in doing an in-place upgrade from W10>W11 you can, but you will have to use a workaround that bypasses the W11 hardware checks.

Watch this video for the easiest way that I know of to do an in-place upgrade from W10>W11 25H2:

How to Install Windows 11 25H2 on Unsupported PCs (New Easiest Method)