upgrade components for Windows 11 on HP Pavilion (2012) laptop

[totomo]

I have a great HP Pavilion laptop from 2012. It has an intel core i5 with dual cores running Windows 10.  Can I upgrade it to Windows 11, and if so, what do I need to do that?

[BeemerBiker]

Yes, it can be upgraded without losing anything but you should make a backup in case something goes wrong.

You did not mention your system and I assume it does not have a UEFI bios and the disk is configured as GPT

For a new system that has UEFI bios (or MBR) and GPT but does not meet all requirements,
Windows 11 can be installed using the Rufus trick.

Get Rufus here


Download Windows 11 with this link and use an 8gb or larger USB.
Windows 11 does not expire and Microsoft just leaves an activation reminder on the screen.
Otherwise it will use the windows 10 license.


Configure Rufus to use MBR boot and select the option that creates a local account
so as to avoid the Microsoft email login. Use options shown below:

note:  you have an older system, so change UEFI to MBR in the above.  Also, if you create the USB on a different system with a different OS then be sure to uncheck the "Set regional options"

To do a clean install then boot the USB else just insert it and find and run "setup"

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @totomo 

If you want to do an in-place upgrade from W10>W11 you must use Rufus 3.18 and not the latest version which does not have the settings to bypass the W11 hardware checks.

I've attached v3.18 below.

Then you can look at my screenshots at the discussion below for how to set up the Rufus utility and there is another illustration that shows you another setting on the Windows screen you need to change.

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

[BeemerBiker]

@Paul_Tikkanen  the bypass settings in Rufus 4.4 pop up after "start" is selected unlike the version 3 Rufus.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Thanks, @BeemerBiker 

I didn't know that.

[BeemerBiker]

When I first noticed the missing bypass, I thought Microsoft's lawyers had told Rufus to stop allowing users to do the free upgrade.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I just tested it out, the new GUI is an improvement.

I like that you can bypass using a Microsoft account and can have Bitlocker not enabled.

I wonder if Microsoft has now added the Intel 11th gen + storage controller drivers in the 23H2 v2 image?

That is a new image.

I don't have a PC with an Intel 11th gen core processor or newer to test that out with.