Updating Windows to enable Hardware Acceleration

[Michael Lloyd]

If your Windows computer meets hardware requirements for Hardware Acceleration (Preferences / Performance / Hardware Acceleration), some users cannot enable Hardware Acceleration due to Windows not meeting version requirements [Windows v10.0.19041], as reported in System Information (command prompt / sysinfo), with minor updates installing without issue. Specifically, Windows 10 64-bit Education variant is known to have this problem.

To resolve this, visit the following link and select "Update now" to force Windows 10 to install the latest major update (currently October 2020). Subsequently you can enable Hardware Acceleration assuming other requirements are satisfied.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Michael

[GarryP]

I think it’s worth saying that it’s not usually recommended that people try to force an upgrade of Windows.
If Windows hasn’t already upgraded then there may be a good reason for that – hardware not fully-compliant, etc.
If you must force an upgrade, and that's your choice, then do a backup of your important files first, just in case.

[emmrecs01]

A wholehearted +100 to what @GarryP has written.