Why is a Dell Inspiron 15 with an Intel i7-4500u CPU not able to be upgraded to Windows 11

Question

I recently upgraded my Dell Inspiron with an SSD, but now find Intel i7-4500U CPUs are not supported under Windows 11 although it is powerful enough ?

Answer 1

It isn't just a power thing. MS also had standards for chipset features, reliability and performance benchmarks. This processor is almost 10 years old and doesn't appear to have a TPM 2.0 so Win11 won't run it. There is nothing we can do about that as it was a decision by MS. Your options are: 1) stay on Windows 10, 2) buy a new machine (because you won't be able to upgrade the processor on the existing one but you could move the SSD over) or 3) go unsupported and install Win11 anyway (be aware you are unsupported though).