I have a PC with an Intel Core i7-7660U CPU, running Windows 10. It’s only a few years old. When I check Windows Update, I see a message that says it’s not compatible with Windows 11. Will this machine eventually support Windows 11? Is there any way around this?

Microsoft officially released the Surface Pro 5 in June 2017 and continued selling it as a current model until its successor was released in October 2018. That means your Surface Pro is probably about four years old and should have plenty of useful life remaining. Alas, its 7th Generation Intel Core CPU isn’t on the list of Windows 11 compatible CPUs, which means upgrades via Windows Update are not supported and probably never will be.

If you’re willing to perform a clean install of Windows 11, you can boot from installation media and run Windows Setup. That option skips the CPU compatibility check completely.

To upgrade your system, you need to modify the registry, as documented in this Microsoft support document. (The usual warnings apply when working with the registry. Make a complete backup before proceeding.) Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup

Create a new DWORD value, AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU, and set it to 1.

You can now perform the upgrade by downloading an ISO file, mounting it as a virtual drive, and running Setup from Windows 10. You’ll see a stern warning about compatibility issues, but after you click OK on that dialog box your upgrade should proceed without any serious issues.