How to Upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 – Guide
Windows 11 is a new operating system that Microsoft released on October 5th. It is available on qualifying devices, such as computers, and anyone using Windows 10 can upgrade for free if they have a suitable computer.
Microsoft is releasing the operating system in phases, so your system might not notify you to update yet – in fact, you might not find it, even if you tell your computer to check for updates. If you’re not in a hurry, the Windows 11 update will be forced onto your device at some point in the next few months, when data from Microsoft shows the update is ready for that device. When the new operating system is available to you, the update process will be similar to a normal Windows 10 update, as long as your device is compatible and meets the necessary minimum requirements.
How do I get Windows 11?
If you’re not sure if your PC is up to date with the latest Windows 10, it’s best to check Windows Update. But because Microsoft is slowly releasing new Windows 11 over many months, your PC might not see it yet. So if you don’t have a full upPC support, or if you’re not sure if your PC is up to date with the latest Windows 10, it’s best to wait until Microsoft releases a new version of Windows 11.
One way to install Windows 11 is to use the Installation Assistant application, which you install on your PC. This application will trigger a normal update installation through Windows Update. The second way to install Windows 11 is to use the Windows 11 media creation tool, which automates the process of creating a bootable USB installation drive or downloading an installation ISO file. Once you have a USB drive, you can either boot from it to perform a clean install or run the installer application from within Windows 10. You can also burn the ISO to a DVD, but installing from any USB drive, even an old USB 2.0 drive, will be much faster so you shouldn’t. Finally, you can simply download an ISO file directly from the Microsoft website.
Do I need to pay for this?
Windows 10 Home and Pro editions are both eligible for the free Windows 11 upgrade. If you’re running one of these editions, you can install and activate the equivalent edition of Windows 11, regardless of whether your PC is officially supported or not. ..
If you’re installing Windows 11 on a new PC, you must purchase a Windows 10 or Windows 11 license from a trusted source. At the time of this writing, the only sites I’ve seen selling retail editions of Windows 11 are product key scam sites that I wouldn’t trust my credit card information with, so I recommend purchasing a Windows 10 license from a trusted site. Your product key must work to install and activate Windows 11. ..
Windows 7 and Windows 8 product keys can be used to activate equivalent editions of Windows 10, but there are reports of problems using these keys with later versions of Windows 10. Your luck may vary. ..
What does my PC need to be “supported”?
Windows 11 is a new operating system from Microsoft that requires a different set of hardware and software than previous versions of Windows. To use Windows 11, your computer must have at least:
- A processor that is 1GHz or faster
- 1GB of RAM (or more)
- 16GB of storage space (or more)
- A graphics card that is DirectX 9 or later compatible and an HDMI port ..
A 64-bit processor from Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm is “compatible” with Windows 10. ..
UEFI Secure Boot enabled and supported the use of secure boot features. This allowed for the safe execution of applications and data in the event of a system crash.
A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a security feature in many computer systems that helps protect the data and systems of users. The TPM is used to create a secure enclave within the computer system, which can only be accessed by those who have been authenticated and authorized by the system.
A DirectX 12-compatible graphics card with a WDDM 2.0 driver is required in order to take advantage of the new features in the DirectX 12 API. ..
A new, larger screen size is coming to the iPhone. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus will have a screen size of at least 1080p, which is a significant increase from the current 720p resolution. ..
Windows 11 Home requires a Microsoft account and Internet connectivity; Windows 11 Pro can still be used with a local account. Windows 10 Home used to let you create a local account as long as you didn’t connect to the Internet during setup, but trick doesn’t work anymore.
The processor requirement is the most restrictive; only 8th generation Intel Core processors and newer, as well as AMD Ryzen 2000 series and newer processors are supported. All these chips were released on the final 2017 and early 2018. Older computers can’t officially run Windows 11. This is a big change from Windows 10, which made it a point to support just about anything that could run Windows 7 or Windows 8 .
In our analysis, we explore the reasoning behind these requirements (and whether they are valid). But the top three are the CPU requirement, the TPM requirement, and the Safe Boot requirement. ..
How do I know if my PC is compatible?
When you open Windows Update in Windows 10, it can tell you whether your PC is up-to-date or not. But the easiest way to check manually is with Microsoft’s PC Health Check app. The first versions of this application were not very good, but the current version will tell you if your PC is up-to-date and also why it is or not. ..
If you’re not using a supported processor, you’ll need to upgrade to a supported CPU or skip to the section where we talk about installing Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. ..
If your processor supports it, you can enable both the TPM and Secure Boot features in your PC BIOS. Unless something is seriously wrong with your PC, this should be safe to do. ..
How do I access my PC’s BIOS?
If you want to enter BIOS by pressing a key after turning on your PC, you can do so by pressing the F2 key, F1 key, or F10 key.
The easiest way to access the BIOS is by opening the Windows Settings application, then clicking on Windows Update, Recovery and Restart Now. In the Basic Blue Screen you will see next, click Troubleshoot and then click Advanced Options. Finally, under UEFI Firmware Settings you will be able to access the BIOS. ..
How do I enable my TPM?
If you’re not sure what you’re doing, try searching for “enable TPM” because many manufacturers have created help pages specifically for Windows 11. ..
Intel systems often refer to their TPM security feature as “TPM”, while AMD systems typically refer to it as “FTPM”. If you cannot find a setting marked “TPM” anywhere in the chipset or security settings, look for “Platform Trust Technology” or “PTT” and enable it.
After enabling the TPM, reboot your computer and use the Health Check app to verify that it is working properly. ..
How do I enable secure boot?
Windows 8 and newer PCs come with a feature called Safe Boot. This helps protect your computer from unauthorized or malicious software that could try to start up during startup. You can usually find the setting in your PC’s BIOS, but if you can’t find it, check your PC’s manual. ..
If your computer won’t boot after you enabled Safe Boot, don’t worry - just follow a few additional steps. Failed to boot is most likely because your hard drive or SSD is configured with an MBR partition table (or Master Boot Record) instead of the more recent GPT (GUID Partition Table) format that Secure Boot and UEFI require. ..
Right-click on the Start button or use the Windows keyboard shortcut + X and click Disk Management in the menu that appears up. Right-click any drive where Windows is installed (on most computers this will be Disk 0, but not always if you have multiple hard drives), click Properties, and look at the Volumes tab. If your partition style is listed as MBR, you will need to convert the drive.
- Open the Start menu and type “cmd” (without the quotes) and hit enter.
- Type “netstat -a” and hit enter.
- The output should look like this:
- If the output shows “0”, then Windows 10 is using the MBR partition table and you can continue with your installation. If the output shows “1”, then Windows 10 has converted to a GPT partition table and you will need to format your drive in order to use it as a Windows 10 device.
Windows Update, Recovery and click on “Restart now” under “Advanced startup”.
When your computer restarts, click on the Troubleshoot button, Advanced Options and Command Prompt. If your computer restarts, click on the Troubleshoot button, Advanced Options and type “cmd” into the search box. ..
In the Command Prompt window, type mbr2gpt /validate to verify that the unit is convertible. Then type mbr2gpt / convert to convert the unit.
When finished, re-enable safe boot in your BIOS and your PC should boot normally.
If you are having trouble converting this file to PDF, try the following:
- Open a new document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Copy and paste the following code into the document’s body: If this conversion fails for some reason, the easiest option might be to do a clean reinstall of Windows 10 or 11 with Safe Boot enabled. When you format the drive and install Windows from a bootable USB stick, it will use GPT instead of MBR.
Final note
Windows 10 is the latest operating system from Microsoft. It was released in July 2015 and has been very popular. Windows 10 is a free upgrade for users of Windows 7 or 8.1. Windows 11 is the latest operating system from Microsoft. It was released in October 2017 and has been very popular. Windows 11 is a free upgrade for users of Windows 10 or 8.1. ..
