Will Update from 1909 to 20H2 break anything?

Samuria said:

Most people on the forum find an update from an old system doesn't work but a clean install works fine

On what basis do you say this? I see no evodence to support this.

I'm using an ASUS bought new from their business line in 2015 [first new OEM Desktop I hadn't built in more than 25 years], haven't had the problems we see posted on forums such as this and have never needed to do a clean install on it. Even the older machines I built don't have issues.

Samuria said:

Most people on the forum find an update from an old system doesn't work but a clean install works fine

cereberus said:

On what basis do you say this? I see no evidence to support this.

I'm with cereberus on this. In my experience you can upgrade to the latest Win10 build direct from any earlier version.

My System One below has had no problems updating, starting life as an OEM Windows 7 install, taking the free update to W10 (build 10240) in August 2015, then every feature update since up to and including W10 21H2. That installed OS was then cloned to a new 'Windows 11 Ready' machine where it successfully upgraded to Windows 11 to become my System One on Eleven Forum .

Subsequently, I took the old machine back to an image of its Windows 10, version 1607 then let Windows Update successfully upgrade that direct to 20H2.

Bree said:

Having migrated the installed Windows (along with all its installed apps and user files) from my System One below to a new modern laptop, I'm now clearing out and re-purposing the old one. As it has some installed software I'd like to keep, but that is impossible to reinstall (eg. MS Office Starter 2010) then a clean install of its Windows 10 Home is not my preferred option. Rather, I decided to take it back to it's earliest available system image....

....It has been a nostalgic, informative and (for the most part) entertaining trip down memory lane. It does go to show that no matter how old your installed Windows 10 is, it should still be possible to upgrade it direct to the latest version...

.............................

As a postscript, I've now manage to restore its 1507 (build 10240) image from 11/11/2015. Using an in-place upgrade with an ISO this time, that too upgraded direct to 21H2 with no issues.

Adventures in space and time - 1607 revisited, then upgraded

Bree said:

Well there's no need to make any rush decisions, you have until October 2025 to make up your mind. Windows 10 is in full support until then.

The key stumbling blocks are (for Intel) a minimum of an 8th gen processor, and the requirement for TPM 2.0. For an Intel system that TPM requirement can be met by turning on Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) in the bios (or for AMD their fTPM) both of which are a firmware TPM solution. See:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...7-ae6b0c90645c

But with workarounds Win11 can be installed on almost any unsupported device. The workarounds are only to bypass the system checks at install time, once installed there are no further checks. I have it running well on a 1st gen i5 for example.

Good to know when the time comes!!

- - - Updated - - -

BREE will this work and is that what you did for a Win11 install?

• 1Press Win+r and type regedit.
• 2Now, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup.
• 3Right-click on the left side and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value.
• 4Use the name AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU.
• 5Switch value to 1.

MPSAN said:

BREE will this work and is that what you did for a Win11 install?

• 1Press Win+r and type regedit.
• 2Now, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup.
• 3Right-click on the left side and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value.
• 4Use the name AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU.
• 5Switch value to 1.

Those instruction come straight from the Microsoft-supplied workaround that I linked to in post #17. They should work, though I haven't tried them myself.

For an in-place upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 on an unsupported device the simplest workaround is to delete appraserres.dll during the upgrade. I show how I do that in post #4 here:

Need help upgrading to Windows 11 on an old TOSHIBA Laptop | Windows 11 Forum

Bree said:

Those instruction come straight from the Microsoft-supplied workaround that I linked to in post #17. They should work, though I haven't tried them myself.

For an in-place upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 on an unsupported device the simplest workaround is to delete appraserres.dll during the upgrade. I show how I do that in post #4 here:

Need help upgrading to Windows 11 on an old TOSHIBA Laptop | Windows 11 Forum

Great...I am almost tempted to play with this. Not sure Win 11 will "buy" me anything at this point!

MPSAN said:

Great...I am almost tempted to play with this. Not sure Win 11 will "buy" me anything at this point!

I have Windows 11 on my machines that support it, and am keeping Windows 10 on those that don't. There isn't really a lot of difference between 10 and 11 once you get past the new layout of the Start menu and the Settings app. Apart from tightening up on security the OS itself is fundamentally the same. And those 'new' security features (such as Core Isolation) are the same in 10 as in 11, it's just that they're off by default in 10 and on by default in 11.

Unless you have a spare machine to play on then I'd advise sticking to 10 for any unsupported machines you rely on for daily use.

I do have 'spares' and can afford to 'play', but only with a machine I'm prepared to wipe and restore to Win10 should it all go wrong. My lowest spec unsupported 'test' machine is running a Windows 10 to Windows 11 upgrade on a 1st gen i5 with a Legacy/MBR install.

Bree said:

I have Windows 11 on my machines that support it, and am keeping Windows 10 on those that don't. There isn't really a lot of difference between 10 and 11 once you get past the new layout of the Start menu and the Settings app. Apart from tightening up on security the OS itself is fundamentally the same. And those 'new' security features (such as Core Isolation) are the same in 10 as in 11, it's just that they're off by default in 10 and on by default in 11.

Unless you have a spare machine to play on then I'd advise sticking to 10 for any unsupported machines you rely on for daily use.

I do have 'spares' and can afford to 'play', but only with a machine I'm prepared to wipe and restore to Win10 should it all go wrong. My lowest spec unsupported 'test' machine is running a Windows 10 to Windows 11 upgrade on a 1st gen i5 with a Legacy/MBR install.

Well, I would use Reflect first but I do not see any reason for me to update our 3 systems. One of them CAN run Win 11 but I chose to keep it on 10 Pro. I should at least update our other systems from 1909 to 20H2 I guess! Of course I always do a Reflect Image first anyway...I always do!

MPSAN said:

....I do not see any reason for me to update our 3 systems. One of them CAN run Win 11 but I chose to keep it on 10 Pro. I should at least update our other systems from 1909 to 20H2 I guess!

There is no pressing need to update to Win11, even on your supported machine, before Win10 reaches end of support in October 2025.

You should definitely update from Windows 10 version 1909 though, that version has not had any new security updates since May 2021. I do hope your 20H2 was a typo, next month's Patch Tuesday cumulative update will be its last. You should update to 21H2, the latest version of Windows 10.

Microsoft said:

Windows 10 Home and Pro

Version	Start Date	End Date
Version 21H2	Nov 16, 2021	Jun 13, 2023
Version 21H1	May 18, 2021	Dec 13, 2022
Version 20H2	Oct 20, 2020	May 10, 2022
Version 2004	May 27, 2020	Dec 14, 2021
Version 1909	Nov 12, 2019	May 11, 2021

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lif...0-home-and-pro

Bree said:

There is no pressing need to update to Win11, even on your supported machine, before Win10 reaches end of support in October 2025.

You should definitely update from Windows 10 version 1909 though, that version has not had any new security updates since May 2021. I do hope your 20H2 was a typo, next month's Patch Tuesday cumulative update will be its last. You should update to 21H2, the latest version of Windows 10.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lif...0-home-and-pro

Well, the one system that said it was Win 11 capable did update to 20H2 19042.1586 so there was no typo.