Windows 11 21H2 Pro will not upgrade to 22H2 Pro

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I have a personal Lenovo laptop, an Ideapad 330, originally purchased new in mid-2021 with Windows 10 Home. It is AMD-based with a Ryzen 3 and Radeon graphics, and has 12Gb of ram. I swapped in a cloned WD Black SSD for the original hard drive before setting it up the first time. For the first three months I had it, each Patch Tuesday it prompted me that it was Windows 11 ready, and finally in September I let it upgrade to Windows 11 21H1 Home. The next month it prompted that it would upgrade me to Pro for free (surprise?). It has been running 21H2 Pro since, and I’ve had no problems, and update it every month.

Yesterday, as I was doing upgrades of work Dell laptops from Windows 10 21H1 Pro to Windows 11 22H2 Pro, with success, I decided to upgrade the Lenovo to 22H2 Pro. The Windows installer proceeded to tell me that my machine’s CPU was not compatible with Windows 11 and shut down the install. I tried this with both the Installation Assistant, and with a flash drive ESD installer with the newest 22H2 on it.

What is going on? Has Microsoft changed their specifications and won’t upgrade an existing Windows 11 install? I am very not happy.

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Have you tried GitHub – rcmaehl/WhyNotWin11: Detection Script to help identify why your PC is not Windows 11 Release Ready. Now Supporting Update Checks!? It will tell you what Windows is seeing about your PC.

--Joe

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The Installation Assistant prompted me to run the Compatibility Checker, and it said that my Ryzen CPU was not compatible. Yet, a year and a half ago, it was.

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most likely a windows installation assistant detection bug.

did you try creating a Windows 11 22H2 ISO usb install media and running the install media directly from there?

Pureinfotech – How to create bootable Windows 11 22H2 USB install media

I never rely on the windows install assistant to clean install or upgrade to 22h2 and just run the installer directly from the install media

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Ryzen 3 2500U CPU, 12GB of RAM, and a 2TB HDD by default per chance?
hmmm…not on the list

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Actually, Ryzen 3 2200U, 12Gb of ram, and a 500Gb WD Black SSD (my own drive). I think the original was a 500Gb Hitachi, but not at home to look at my notes from that time and rebuild. It is a sub $400 15-inch that I found on sale at Best Buy, and bought on a whim as my previous Lenovo, an Idea Book, had been a good machine.

Still seems odd that Windows Updates bugged me to upgrade a year-an-a-half ago. It has the TPM, so it had no complaints when I installed Windows 11 then, certainly not about the CPU.

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see my earlier post above

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I tried all the installations – Installation Assistant first, then an ESD flash drive of 22H2. I used two different flash drives – one from the early release last September, and one I made just last week. All failed, saying my CPU was not compatible. It acts like Microsoft just decided to slough off earlier CPUs, and possibly other hardware (less expensive machines?) since Windows 11 was first released.

I didn’t force Windows 11 onto the laptop – it was from an invitation during regular Windows monthly updates in 2021, and it upgraded to 21H2 soon after, in October of 2021.

I’ve been building machines since Windows 98, am familiar with all Windows versions since then, and like my signature, I am an IT for a small public museum.

I started reading Windows Secrets many years ago as one of many helpful sites to continue to learn from, and enjoy that the legacy lives on here as AskWoody.

I ask this question here, as I am sore disappointed that Windows won’t upgrade a working install that it invited me to do previously. Had I waited and tried and upgrade from W10 now, it would tell me my machine was incompatible, and I wouldn’t have bothered to ask.

I have three new Windows 11 Pro licenses waiting for new builds I’m going to start soon, and this sort of arbitrary marketing makes me wonder if I’m wasting my money, as some or all may fall off their charts with future version releases.

Sorry to seem like I’m grumbling out loud, but this is not incompatibility – my Lenovo was good to go, and now it’s not. It’s disappointing, and that’s not good business.

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Pat Museum IT wrote:

I didn’t force Windows 11 onto the laptop – it was from an invitation during regular Windows monthly updates in 2021, and it upgraded to 21H2 soon after, in October of 2021.

21H2 was the original version of Windows 11, released October 4, 2021.

Pat Museum IT wrote:

For the first three months I had it, each Patch Tuesday it prompted me that it was Windows 11 ready, and finally in September I let it upgrade to Windows 11 21H1 Home. The next month it prompted that it would upgrade me to Pro for free (surprise?).

I’ve never heard of a free upgrade to Pro (except temporary, non-activated).

Unless you joined the Windows Insider program, you didn’t get Windows 11 in September 2021.

Could you copy your Windows Specifications from Settings, System, About (or Run, winver), including OS Build number, and post them here?

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I ran into the same problem. What I ultimately did was use a program called Rufus to create a Windows 11 ssH2 installation on USB. Rufus is a free utility that creates a bootable USB with an OS – https://rufus.ie/en/

I downloaded the 22H2 ISO file from Microsoft. I ran Rufus. After the initial setup screen, there’s a second screen that lets you remove the requirement for Secure Boot, TMP 2.0, etc. After the USB is created, I just run the ISO file from there to update Win 11 to 22H2. Just make sure you back up all your personal files before you update. But it worked for me.

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Pat Museum IT

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Lance, thanks for the idea. I had forgotten about Rufus – I used it years ago to make bootable drives for XP, and W7, back when such things didn’t exist from Microsoft. I’ll build a drive this weekend and try it out Monday (laptop is at work, and I’m out tomorrow).

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I know this is an older post but when you look at 23h2 it now requires at least a 8th gen intel Processor so I would not be surprised that your processer did not meat the min for 22h2. But the Rufus method mention here will allow you to bypass all that stuff even to do the 23h2 (although you need to download the newer ISO that has 23h2

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