I have a computer that I built myself, currently running Windows 10. I checked to see if it can be upgraded to Windows 11 and it “doesn’t currently meet Windows 11 system requirements.”
Apparently, it doesn’t support Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 must be supported and enabled.
Before I try and figure out if I even can enable those things, will enabling those things screw up my machine somehow? What do they do?
Is it worth researching whether I can enable those? Or, is Windows 11 not worth it?
Can I turn that stuff on without somehow bricking my computer?
Is there any way to upgrade to Windows 11 without turning those on?
I’m pretty sure we have 4 years more of Win 10 support. So I think the question is really, is Win 11 worth upgrading to on an older machine?
I found it, Windows 10 support ends on Oct. 14, 2025
When I finally replace my PC, it will be Win 11 but this one will remain Win 10. Of course it is from 2014, so an easy decision.
Win 11 has only been released into the wild for a few weeks now. I strongly recommend waiting at least 6-9 months before upgrading an existing computer.
If you still really want to upgrade right away, (bad idea) read through this:
Same case for me. Built a machine over the summer, but Windows Update says it doesn’t meet Win11 requirements.
A little research shows it does. Any CPU of recent manufacture has the capability. The trick is enabling it. You’ll have to go into the BIOS setup and find the relevant configuration options. It’s not hard (assuming you know how to config the BIOS, usually pressing F2 or Del during the bootstrap).
Once TPM, etc is enabled, you have to make Windows Update re-run its detection. That was actually the hard part and I’m not sure how I finally triggered it to rerun. But it did and said it’s ready for Windows 11.
I went ahead and upgraded to Windows 11. It was surprisingly fast. I haven’t noticed any substantial differences from when it was running Win10. Your experiences may vary.
What Exit has posted instructions. Haven’t looked but I assume they are correct - Tom’s is usually pretty good.
Microsoft requires computer makers (the big guys - HP, Dell etc) to enable TPM. You don’t need it (as you already know) and most custom built computers don’t have it enabled.
With most reasonably new computers up to 5 years old, maybe more, you should be able to enable TPM through system bios. I would suggest going to the motherboard manufacturers website, finding your motherboard model and it’s likely that will set you on track to pertinent instructions to enable TPM.
Personally, I’d be in no rush to ‘upgrade’ the operating system unless other factors were involved such as imminent failure of hardware components, which is the only reason I now run Win 10. My preference is 7. Support ending is as much a mechanism to boost sales as anything.
So, I have an additional complication – I haven’t tried it, but apparently, if I enable secure boot, my computer won’t boot up because my system disk uses an MBR rather than GPT.
The computer is not old – I built it last year. The drive isn’t old. But, I’ve been transferring my build from drive to drive for many years now – I think it was originally Windows 7.
Apparently, you have to wipe the disk to go from MBR to GPT – that’s really not happening. Outside of work hours, I’ll try turning on secure boot and see what happens. TPM doesn’t seem to be a big hurdle, but secure boot might be.
I read that there are several ways to convert from MBR to GPT without data loss. In any case, I make a system backup first.
For secure boot, from what I remember, I went to the BIOS (mine is from 2014, according to System Information in Windows 10) and turned it on, but I restored factory default keys first (also in the BIOS settings). And then with GPT I used UEFI to boot, also set in BIOS. There were also settings for fast boot or similar which made the boot up even faster.
For core isolation (found in Windows Security), I updated drivers first, then ran it so that it could identify old, incompatible drivers. I looked for them using the search option and then renamed them. After that, core isolation worked.
I also enabled Hyper-V in Win 10 for virtualization technology, but I don’t know how to use it.
The only thing I lack is TPM. I searched for the motherboard model online (also found in System Information, under baseboard product), and according to the specs, it has a TPM header. But I don’t want to bother research on that anymore because the system is too old (the i5 CPU is 4th generation), so I decided to turn on whatever hardware security is available.
Snipping tool doesn’t work in Windows 11 for whatever reason. That’s a deal breaker for me. Read some tutorials, but I couldn’t figure them out. As it was within the 10 day window (pun intended) I was able to load 10 back onto my computer. Snipping tool was back again.
Yeah, Snipping Tool has been deprecated for a while; it’s been giving a warning for over a year that it’s being phased out. The replacement is Snip & Sketch, a free app from the Windows store. Not sure why they’re doing the switch, instead of updating the original.
And the Etch & Sketch didn’t work in Windows 11 either so thumbs down on that. So I’m back in business after going back to Windows 10. Ironic that with whatever “advancements” Windows 11 might have, there’s that HUGE backwards step. Maybe it gets fixed in later versions?
Googling, I see others also complained about Snipping Tool not working. Supposedly you can copy the .exe file from Windows 10 and use that in Windows 11.
I saw some tool from EaseUS (I’ve used their software in the past to move system disks over (which is why I’m still on MBR, probably), but do you know of any specific recommendations?
I remember using EaseUS and Minitool for Win 10 PCs, and the built-in diskpart when I was still using Win 7, and all because the drives were bigger than 2 TB. But I had to make sure that each one had full system backups that could be restored.