/
How to Self-Upgrade Your Computer from Windows 10 to Windows 11

How to Self-Upgrade Your Computer from Windows 10 to Windows 11

Overview

The Windows 10 operating system is no longer supported by its vendor, Microsoft. Windows 10 users must upgrade their computers to the currently supported operating system Windows 11 in order to stay in compliance with UT Austin policies.

College of Education employees needing to upgrade their University issued computers can contact the Information Technology Office (ITO) at help@education.utexas.edu to schedule a time for technical support staff to upgrade your computer for you which usually requires that you to drop off your computer at the college. Alternatively employees can choose to self-upgrade by utilizing a self-service item available in the Software Center application on their computer.

The self-upgrade process takes about 4 hours total. The first 3 hours consists of the download and installation process which during this time you can continue to use your computer normally. During the final hour you will not be able to use your computer.

How to Self-Upgrade

Upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is considered a major upgrade. As with any major upgrade there is a small chance something may go wrong with the upgrade process. Before upgrading make sure your important files are backed up in case something goes wrong and you lose access to your computer until it can be fixed by College of Education technical support staff.

The University “UT Backup” service (CrashPlan app on your computer) can be used to backup your files or you can copy your files to UT Box.

 

  1. Open up the Software Center application and find the item to upgrade. The item will be named similar to “Windows 11, version 24H2 x64…” See screenshot below:

 

  1. Click on the item to open it up. Then click the “Install” button.

 

  1. After clicking the Install button you will get the confirmation screen below. Click the “Install” button to proceed with the download and install process.

 

  1. The download and install portion of the process takes about 3 hours assuming your computer has a fast internet connection, is left powered on, and isn’t using much network bandwidth for other things such as viewing videos. During this time you can continue to use the computer but you may notice some sluggish computer performance at various times.

    • NOTE: An error may occur during this process resulting in a failure notice. There will probably be an unhelpful hex error as displayed in the screenshots below. If this happens you should should try the upgrade again later - like in an hour or so. If the problem persists then there is probably something about your computer preventing the upgrade which is going to require tech support to troubleshoot and fix. In this event please submit a tech support ticket to help@education.utexas.edu

 

  1. After the download and installation portion of the upgrade process completes, you will be prompted to restart the computer. The restart prompt you will get will be the same one they see during the normal monthly Windows OS updates.

 

  1. After you restart the computer, the final stage of the upgrade starts. During this stage the computer IS NOT usable and it needs to complete before you can start using the computer again. Assuming the process is not interrupted this phase of the upgrade takes about 1 hour to complete.

Win11_Update_Last_Stage.png

 

  1. When the final stage completes, log into the computer and it should now be running Windows 11. If it is not then something probably failed with the upgrade process and you can either try again or contact College of Education technical support at help@education.utexas.edu for assistance.