Upgrading WIn 11 Pro on HP Elitelbook 850 G5

[mijik]

I recently purchased this HP Elitebook 850 G5 on eBay but the seller seems to have had it shipped directly from HP refurb. It arrived packed just as I had seen for HP refurbs. It came with Win 11 Pro. It upgraded to 23h2. i PURCHASED it as way to continue with Win 11 Pro, after almost all my computers and my laptop are now obsolete. I am irate to learn that this computer should never have been able to upgrade Win 11 Pro thus never sold as a Win 11 Pro machine, due to the fact that the CPU is obsolete!!!!! Almost all computers I own are HP as well as my switches and many other computer devices. That it was allowed to be upgraded, when it was known Win 11 would never progress due to the list MS held of incompatible CPUs, which then enabled it to be sold as a WIN 11 Pro computer is deceptive!!!!! I am beginning to feel HP is no longer the company I want to purchase from! It alreqady appears to be an INK company, not a PRINTER company!!!!!

[NonSequitur777]

@mijik,

WHY are you blaming HP when you knowingly purchased a legacy PC you could have known was fitted with a 7th gen Intel Core processor (the i5-7300U, i5-7200U models)?

I honestly don't get that.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@mijik,

Look, the HP EliteBook 850 G5 series originally shipped with 7th- or 8th-generation Intel Core U-series processors and Windows 10 Pro. When new, these systems were never marketed or certified by HP as Windows 11-compatible, since they were released several years before Windows 11 was introduced.

If your particular unit has a 7th-generation processor (as mentioned, the i5-7200U or i5-7300U), it falls outside Microsoft's official list of CPUs eligible for Windows 11. HP has no control over that list -it's a Microsoft policy decision.

By the way, it is worth noting that HP's own Refurbished Products Program normally restores business-class units to their original supported configuration -meaning, in this particular case, Windows 10 Pro. For that reason, it is exceedingly unlikely that HP themselves would have supplied a 7th-gen system with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled. More probably, the independent eBay reseller performed a clean Windows 11 installation.

The good news is that Windows 11 often runs perfectly well on 7th-gen systems -it just isn't officially supported by Microsoft.

In short, there is no deception by HP here -the system itself is functioning as designed, but Microsoft's later CPU-eligibility policy is what makes it appear "unsupported".

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777