10+ yr old Laptop - updating to Windows 11 from Windows 10 Pro? Bitlocker?

DIYhelp76

Hi

I have a 10 yr+ old laptop.  Somehow managed to upgrade this to Windows 10 Pro which it is now running.  It also has Bitlocker.

Both the Windows 10 Pro and Bitlocker were needed for some work I was doing but no longer do, so neither are crucial to keep.

My questions are:

1. Should I manually updgrade to Windows 11 now (or will this just happen automatically - by an auto update by MS/Windows)?  If so, how do I get this update and install it?

2.  How can I be sure that my very old laptop will meet the requirements of Windows 11 or if the installation will fail?  If it fails, will it leave Windows 10 Pro running unaffected?

3.  Is there an advantage to keeping Bitlocker now I no longer need it for work?  How can I remove it if I wanted to?  (I seem to recall that the reason I needed Windows 10 Pro was to be able to get Bitlocker, so is Bitlocker available for Windows 11?)

Quite un-techie, so many thx in advance for any help on this. 

Peter999_2

Hi, 

Bitlocker is available for Windows 11 Pro and if you could upgrade it would still be there (it's easiest for it to upgrade you itself).

Do you know how old your laptop is?    Microsoft has restrictions on wether you can upgrade or not (originally you needed at least an 8th Gen Intel chip for example though apparantly they have relaxed that a bit and allowed older processors).    Also, you need to have TPM at least version 2 (don't worry too much about what that is, just click on START - RUN, type in TPM.MSC and press enter.   It will take you to a screen that will either say you haven't got TPM or you have and it will give you a version number that needs to be at least 2.0.

If you try and update to Windows 11 it will only let you if it thinks you're laptop is compatible so there is no harm in giving it a go.

Bitlocker just encrypts your hard drive so that if the laptop is stolen the thieves wouldn't be able to access the data on it which is no doubt why your work wanted you to have that.   There is no reason to not have it still, I use it myself on a non-work laptop just in case if the laptop gets nicked.   The thief will be able to wipe the laptop and re-install windows but wouldn't be able to get to your data without your password.

There is nothing wrong with staying on Windows 10, though it goes out of extended support next year so if it was me I'd try and upgrade it to windows 11.

400ixl

Microsoft wrote a check tool for this purpose https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp

Veteransaver

Personally I'd stay on win10. I can't see any advantage of win11, it's slower and the taskbar and UI are an utter horror show in my opinion!

Vitor

Not surprising that a laptop that old hasn't auto-updated to Windows 11, the updater will have checked and found the hardware doesn't meet minimum requirements for 11.

You can force an update to Windows 11 but that's a process which isn't simple for the 'un-techie'.

TBH, I'd leave on Windows 10 Pro at least until Microsoft stop supporting that OS. Then think about a new laptop unless you're OK with the risk of using software which won't get security patches etc.

NB you  can turn off Bitlocker on Windows 10 but on an old laptop it'll likely take hours to unencrypt the drive contents.

400ixl

Veteransaver said:

Personally I'd stay on win10. I can't see any advantage of win11, it's slower and the taskbar and UI are an utter horror show in my opinion!

Its certainly not slower than Windows 10. The UI is personal opinion, but it is essentially Windows 10 with a centre taskbar and windows with rounded corners. So you must consider Windows 10 an utter horror show as well.

There are lots of changes under the covers which are improving the performance of Windows 11 over Windows 10 (even on older hardware) and some are exclusive to Windows 11 going forwards.

If you can run Windows 11 it is going to be worth it. Unless you don't like change of course.

OP will likely find when you run the checker the laptop is not compatible and that is why no auto update has happened.

DIYhelp76

Thanks very much to everyone for the helpful replies.  I ran the linked "health check". It says my laptop is not compatible for following reasons: 

• "Processor not supported for Windows 11" - Intel Pentium CPU P61000 @ 2.00 GHz; and
• TPM2.0 must be supported and enabled (I ran the "Run" check and it says "Compatible TPM cannot be found; and
• Must support Secure Boot"

Are these things I could fix/update so as to be eligible for the Window 11 /W 11 Pro update, or impossible/very difficult to achieve?  Laptop is 12 years old. 

I installed a new 500GB SSD drive a few years ago which has served me well, but really I think it's time for an upgrade and maybe keep this as a spare?  If upgrade, I'd really would like the flexibility of a 2-in-1 but with large storage capacity ideally.  Reviewed this ages ago and all the options were quite pricey. Would be looking for a used machine.  Any suggestions?  I would need Windows and Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc and at least 500GB storage, ideally more?

Thx and noted re Bitlocker, I suppose will leave in place for now. What prompted me to ask is that recently laptop crashed and got stuck in a "Bitlocker loop" and wouldn't re-boot for ages which was quite terrifying!  Never happened before. After several reboot and "repair" attempts it finally booted.  I do do hard drive backups but not as regularly as I should. Wonder if this is a warning that the laptop is on it's last legs?

Many thx again. 

Vitor

>impossible/very difficult to achieve?<

Not impossible, there's guides on YouTube etc. on how to bypass the Windows 11 installer checks but as your say you're 'un-techie' I wouldn't recommend it as things can go wrong and you might end up with an unusable laptop especially with the additional complications of an encrypted boot SSD.

>and at least 500GB storage, ideally more?<

SSD above that size get costly, most peeps are taking a Microsoft 365 subscription and storing document and images on the 1TB of cloud storage and also letting Microsoft do the backups/replication.

facade

You can bypass the checking and install Win11, but it won't update properly, and you have to re-install every time a "feature update " comes out.

The latest build of Win11 needs SSE4 to run and really old processors like the Core2 don't have it, your  P61000  might have it, Intel don't say, you'd need to run CPU-Z  to find out.

So I wouldn't bother with Win 11..

Win 10 still has support for 12 months, plenty of time to source a "new" laptop, or even do what millions of people will do, keep using Win10 for years and use a decent anti-virus .

GDB2222

facade said:

You can bypass the checking and install Win11, but it won't update properly, and you have to re-install every time a "feature update " comes out.

The latest build of Win11 needs SSE4 to run and really old processors like the Core2 don't have it, your  P61000  might have it, Intel don't say, you'd need to run CPU-Z  to find out.

So I wouldn't bother with Win 11..

Win 10 still has support for 12 months, plenty of time to source a "new" laptop, or even do what millions of people will do, keep using Win10 for years and use a decent anti-virus .

I'm in much the same position as the OP, but I will definitely NOT be taking the risk of running W10 after the security updates end. 

I'm toying with the idea of updating my PC and laptop 6 months before W10 stops updating, as I expect an enormous demand for machines when that happens.