Ubuntu 11.04 no longer supported

Hello i am using Ubuntu 11.04 and have been trying to do updates so i can upgrade to the new version, i have been told the only way around it is to do a clean install, i gather doing that i have to uninstall the 11.04 from my PC and download the new one to a CD and install it, i am not an IT expert just a self taught pensioner , i dual boot with windows 7 , i would dearly love some advice that i can understand

sorry not using ubuntu so never gone through the upgrade process myself, but i found 2 links that should help you.

the first shows you how to upgrade from 11.04 to 11.10 and the 2nd shows how to upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04.

i don't know if you can upgrade straight from 11.04 to 12.04 so that's why both links.

http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-upgrade-u…ktop-and-server

http://www.techdrivein.com/2012/04/two-way…-to-ubuntu.html

if you use the update manager you don't need to download and burn a cd to do the upgrades, if you have any problems or need more help just let me know and i'll install ubuntu in a vm and see how to upgrade it and give you a step by step account..

just had a thought you say your dual booting with win 7,
how did you install ubuntu?
in other words does ubuntu have it's own partitions on the hard drive or is it a wubi install ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide ) where it's installed as a program in win7.

not sure if it makes a difference when it comes to doing the upgrades but thought i'd better ask just in case it might, and i'd need to know so i can replicate your setup on my pc before attempting to do the upgrade myself if needed later.

Hi Terry, I dual boot which is basically i chose a partition for Win 7 and a partition for Ubuntu.
It's a darn nuisance that they won't do the updates now as it is not supported from 1st Oct and i have about 180MB of updates , been a bit slack and didn't realise it was coming to an end, i thought it was just 10.10 meerkat.
I originally downloaded 10.10 from a CD i was given then later upgraded from the download on line.
I was wanting to update so i could go to 11.10 then eventually 12.04 once they tweaked all faults out lol
Thanks for the info i will read it now

just type in the command line: do-release-upgrade if there is no version mentioned go to synaptic, look for updates and then got to the point "show new distribution releases". There you can choose every release. If you have a dualboot system i would recommend that you are going to delete your old kernels and headers. Just type this: dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/(.*)-([^0-9]+)/1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* ([^ ]*).*/1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs sudo apt-get -y purge cheers