Claims cannot upgrade to Windows 11

[PPerry57]

I have a 4 year old HP Laptop (15-bs013dx) that came with Windows 10. To keep it in service longer, I would like to upgrade to Windows 11, but PC Health Check claims the CPU is not supported. It is an Intel Core i3-7100U running at 2.4 GHz. Even though it was probably towards the lower end of HP's offerings at the time, I find it hard to believe that a machine of this power (fast enough for anything I do [I don't game]), that literally rivals the power of the mainframes of when I started in the industry, can't run Win11! What's the story? Is there something genuinely insufficient here, or someone just forgot to add a perfectly good processor to the list? Currently the machine is running fine, so I hate to throw it out when application support (as well as Win10 support) goes away. It's got 8 GB RAM and 1 TB disk. TPM says it's version 2.0, with a PC client version 1.00.

I'm reluctant to override PC Health and force an install of Win11, but I find it ridiculous that this machine supposedly can't be upgraded.  Is there any channel for bringing this to the attention of whoever makes the decision for what's supported? I'm really tired of having to throw out perfectly good hardware just so they can make me buy a shiny new toy. At least my Win7 Presario had a failing charger and battery when I finally had to ditch it for my present laptop.

As I said, I'm hesitant to override the ruling and force an install, unless the ability to fully roll it back is absolutely guaranteed. What are my options here?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Your only option would be to use one of the W11 hardware check bypass methods to upgrade to W11.

Even if your PC was supported by Microsoft for W11, after 10 days has elapsed from the time you did the upgrade, you would not be able to roll back to W10.

You would either have to clean install W10 by making bootable installation media with the Media creation tool or use the HP cloud recovery tool to create a bootable W10 installation flash drive to factory reset the notebook.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Customer Support

I have upgraded many (more than 10) HP and Dell notebook's and PC's that don't meet the W11 hardware requirements to W11, and they all work just fine on it.  Some of those are relics going back to 2008.

If you are interested in trying out W11, you can read the discussion below for how I upgraded my PC's to the latest version of W11:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Issues-upgrading-to-windows-11... 

[PPerry57]

I was afraid that might be the answer. It doesn't sound like a forced/bypassed upgrade is guaranteed to act nicely. I read things in the referenced thread about not getting quite the full Win11 capability and further upgrades may only be partial, and that concerns me. At this point, my next step may be to go to MS and ask them to justify omitting this processor from their supported list. I'm not sure what path to take here. Worst case, I can get a couple more years of Win10 support before everything implodes, and (like my previous Compaq) the hardware is starting to break down by then, justifying buying a new toy. Hopefully Win12 will be out by then, as Win11 will probably be facing end-of-life. Maybe I can then put Linux on this machine and use it for something. I've had my car 12 years and it's still fine, and I ran the one before that for 16 years, as I don't like planned obsolescence, and I don't jump on the "I have to have the latest and greatest toys" bandwagon! (as you might guess, I don't own an iPhone)

Thank you for answering, and giving a possible way forward, but I'm going to have to think about this one for a bit.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I have no regrets installing W11 on any of my PC's

There was no way I was going to let my Dell Optiplex 7050 MT with an i7-7700 processor not be upgraded due to some line drawn in the sand.

There were a lot of pushbacks from folks to Microsoft as to why they chose to not include the Intel 6th and 7th gen processors in the eligibility list.

This was Microsoft's response...

Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements and the PC Health Check app | Windows Insider Blog

The rest of the PC's I upgraded to W11 for fun, and they all work better on W10 then they did on W11.

One amazed me...my ancient HP 6910p notebook with the AMD x2300 graphics adapter, and a T7500 processor.

Somewhere along the line, W10 would not accept the graphics driver...I think around version 2004.

So, in order to keep using the notebook with the right graphics, I had to roll back the installation and keep it from updating, which was a pain in the neck.

On a whim, I decided to try an in-place upgrade from W10>W11 on that notebook and for some unknown reason the graphics works just fine.  Go figure.  Now I can use the notebook for a few more years without any issues.

But, yes, it will require me to beat the system once every September/October as the new releases of W11 are rolled out, and if you are not willing to do that, then I would not do it.

For me to reinstall my programs and files once a year (assuming worst case scenario of having to clean install W11), it takes me less than two hours to completely get each PC up and running.

In about 3/4 of the cases, the PC's were able to do an in-place upgrade from the older version of W11 to the newer one.

Whey those few others would not do an in-place upgrade, I have no idea.

There are no failure codes, no warnings, no nothing.

One minute they are at about 80% complete and the next minute, they are right back to the Windows desktop as if nothing happened.

Personally, I think Microsoft didn't want to make the same mistake twice when they opened up the flood gates for any PC running W7 to be able to upgrade to W10.

Just think of how many support calls they don't have to field by limiting the hardware requirements.

Now they don't have to be bothered by someone like me calling for help getting my vintage 2008 HP notebook to work on W11, and in two years, they won't have to be bothered by all of the W10 support requests.