Transfer Windows 10 Upgrade to 11 on new PC

Psychobilly

Apologies if this might be the wrong forum category to be asking this.

I have 6-7 year old PC that I built and it has Windows 10 on it. I've gotten notifications for upgrading to Windows 11, however the PC does not meet the minimum requirements for the upgrade. I've heard that you can use the same product key for Windows 10 to upgrade to Windows 11. I'm planning to build a whole new PC in the near future. Is there a way to create a Windows 11 boot drive with my old PC in order to simply install on the newly built one which will meet the requirements for Windows 11?

Thanks in advance!

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Psychobilly

6-7 years is going to be right around the cut off. First, tell us what the specs are on your system. It may be just be a BIOS setting like TPM to make it compatible with Windows 11. As for transferring the key to another system, it's technically tied to a motherboard hardware hash it generates on the initial activation. It's tied to the motherboard, typically though if the system fails and has to be replaced, Microsoft will let you transfer the license.

Psychobilly

I'm not currently at my PC but I know these are my basic "specs" I'll take a look in the BIOS to see if there's anything about TPM in there. Thanks for pointing me in a new direction I can google a bit more with this info. I see some discussion about it on Asus forums.

https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/z170/windows-11-tpm-2-0-and-asus-z170-pro-gaming/m-p/868791

• Motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming
• CPU: Intel i7-6700K
• GPU: MSI GTX 1070Ti
• RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB)
• PSU: Corsair RM750i

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Psychobilly

Unfortunately an Intel 6th Gen CPU is a bit old for the Windows 11 upgrade. Would of needed to be an 8th Gen or later: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/supported/windows-11-supported-intel-processors

Edit: Actually you might have another option. Checked the board, it does have a TPM header. You can do Windows 11 with a 6th Gen Intel CPU AND a discrete TPM 2.0 module. This should work, though it is going to require a clean installation. You won't be able to upgrade.