Upgrade Computer For Win 11 or Buy New?

W

Witterings

New Member
I'm relatively new to learning more about computers / upgrades and installing OS's etc. but really enjoying the learning curve and keen to do / learn more.

The desktop computers I have are both running Win 10 and not upgradable to 11 so looking at my options, I was wondering if I could upgrade the motherboard / cpu in one of the cases and transfer the drive I have from the existing machine so I should theoretically get a free upgrade to Windows 11 or am I best off just buying a new machine with a Win 11 licence included?

Upgrade would massively help me as well because of the software I have installed and work related bookmarks etc. that'd take me ages to set up again.

Problems I can foresee / am trying to anticipate.

1/. Not sure if all motherboards fixings / sizes are a standard size / will fit in all cases
2/. Transferring the drive I have with the OS to new hardware. may not pick up all the drivers needed for the new MB?
3/, Partially covered in point 1 .... will things like USB ports align on the casing slots with the older machines.

My options to install a new MB / processor are either a bog standard Lenovo I bought from PC World years ago with an onboard graphics card, or some reason was looked down so you couldn't install a different one (widely documented in forums) but I'm guessing that was tied in with the motherboard.

The other is a Tower I bought 2nd hand with an old Gigabyte MB, this was potentially the better machine but the fan on it is a noisy as F...

I'm not gaming or anything, it's a work computer so just needs to run Office / Outlook and web browsing and that's pretty much it bu everyone likes a machine that reacts really quickly irrespective or what you're doing.

I've also briefly looked at Mini PC's as I don't need anything blindingly fast and most will probably be an upgrade from my 8/10 year old PC, I've also installed OpenMediaVault on an old server to use as a NAS so any storage can be done there.

Any help / advice really appreciated as I don't quite know where to go with this, I think my biggest concern wuld be having to set everything up from scratch so an uograde would have a HUGE appeal.
 
What else is deficient about your PC?

I wouldn't spend any money just to go from 10 -> 11 unless there's a specific dependency you need that 100% doesn't work on 10.

EOL is October 2025.
 
beers said:
What else is deficient about your PC?

I wouldn't spend any money just to go from 10 -> 11 unless there's a specific dependency you need that 100% doesn't work on 10.

EOL is October 2025.
Click to expand...

There's nothing currently wrong with it but I recently cleared out a storage unit that had 4 pcs and a server in it from when I had an office and am getting rid of the ones that have no future use.

My current PC isn't very upgradable so when Win10 is EOL it'll get chucked, I'm just tyring to see if any of the others have any use going forward before getting rid of them.
Also as mentioned to upgrade from Win 10 to 11 would be so much easier than a new install and having to set everything up again / reinstall software / bookmarks etc. from scratch.
 
Well typically going from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is free as the licenses are digital with Windows 10. So your computer will get registered with Windows 11 if upgraded. But depending on the age/hardware, it would most likely not be compatible (though Microsoft has a solution for the TPM Requirement (<- link) that could help install it).

Worse case, you can turn them into Linux machines for budding users that want to learn it. :)

Having said that, you could use Windows 10 after the end of support... or you can purchase their extended security updates which is for another 3 years if that helps:

learn.microsoft.com

Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 - What's new in Windows

Learn about the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10. The ESU program gives customers the option to receive security updates for Windows 10.
learn.microsoft.com
 
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