How to upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware

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[bbearren]

WSaltamirano wrote:

Can you write a topic that explain the exact steps to do that.

From what I’ve read, the only upgrade path to Windows 11 is from Windows 10. I’ve seen nothing online to indicate that upgrading from earlier versions is supported; of course I could be wrong on that.  I’m running Pro, and Pro does not require a Microsoft account for the Windows 11 upgrade; Home does.

This procedure implies no guarantees, and if you follow it, bear in mind that you are doing so at your own risk.  I don’t have a Windows Home version, so I haven’t tried this with Windows Home.  If you don’t have an issue with using a Microsoft account, this procedure may still work with Home.  Again, no guarantees, use at your own risk.  Note the first and most important step in bold below.

In order to upgrade from Windows 10 on unsupported hardware, you will need Windows 10 installation media (DVD, USB or ISO) and Windows 11 installation media (DVD, USB or ISO). The first and most important step is to create a complete drive image set of your entire current installation of Windows, including the EFI partition, in case something goes south on you. The upgrade will re-write the EFI partition, and your PC could likely become unbootable should something go amiss with the upgrade and you want to regress to Windows 10. It is much simpler and easier to restore a drive image set than to jump through a bunch of hoops just trying to get your PC to boot.

The second important step is to create copies of your Windows 10 installation media and Windows 11 installation media, so that you can work off the copies, and leave you existing installation media in its pristine condition. It isn’t necessary to burn DVD’s or recreate USB’s. This procedure can be used from a folder in a separate partition on a separate drive. I ran it from a folder named “Edited Win 11 Pro RTM”. You can name it whatever you like, just don’t put it on the C: drive. This may mean that you will need to use a DVD or USB if your PC/laptop has only one accessible partition. If you have an accessible partition other than C:, that will do. Just create the folder you will be working on/from; name it whatever you like. This is your working folder.

If your Windows 10 installation media is an ISO, mount it, then copy all the contents to your working folder. Once that is complete, you can unmount the ISO. If your installation media is on DVD or USB, plug it in, and copy all the contents to your working folder, then eject your DVD or “Safely remove hardware” in the case of USB. Then in your working folder, open the “sources” folder and look for a file named either “install.esd” or “install.wim”. It’s a big file. Delete whichever file you find; you won’t find both, only one or the other will be there.

Next you’ll need your Windows 11 installation media. Mount it, navigate to the “sources” folder. Again, inside the sources folder will be a file named either “install.esd” or “install.wim”. Copy that file, then navigate to your working folder. In your working folder, paste your copied file in the “sources” folder. Your working folder is now ready for the upgrade.

I suggest restarting to close any open system files and relaunch a fresh Windows 10, then log into an account in the Administrators group.  In Windows 10 Home, this needs to be a Microsoft account for the upgrade.  Navigate to your working folder and double-click on “Setup.exe”. Acknowledge the UAC prompt if it pops up, and relax. When it’s looking for updates, click Next and let it. These are Windows 10 updates it’s looking for, and you just might need something to make the upgrade work properly. My upgrade took an hour and six minutes. When it gets to the blue screen and is copying files, you will see “Installing Windows 10”. You can ignore that, it’s part of the outer wrapper of the installation media. The files that are being copied are coming from the “install.wim” (or “install.esd”) that you pasted into the working folder, and it’s actually installing Windows 11.

If I recall correctly, there were four restarts before the OOBE said, “Hi”. The OOBE took another three minutes before the desktop appeared.

And as always, YMMV.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by bbearren.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by bbearren.

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WSaltamirano, migongo

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Readers FYI: Microsoft itself explains how to install Win11 on unsupported systems.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e

Then there’s the current device requirements:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications

This smells of a honeypot-entrapment..remember, Win11 needs an online MSFT account (mandatory for Home Editions even if you don’t currently have one using Win10)..think about it.

IMO the risks outweigh the potential, my advice is to just wait until offered the option, MSFT ain’t stupid thanks to telemetry advancements over the years.

Ask yourself this, do I NEED it or do I just WANT it?
It’s your choice..

Win8.1/R2 Hybrid lives on..

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PKCano

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The OP was requested by an AskWoody Lounger.

WSaltamirano wrote:

bbearren wrote: Windows 10 can be upgraded to RTM Windows 11 simply by using the Windows 10 installation media with the sourcesinstall.wim (or sourcesinstall.esd) replaced with the same file from the Windows 11 installation media

WSaltamirano wrote:

Can you write a topic that explain the exact steps to do that.

bbearren wrote:

Yes, I can do that. I’ll post it here in this forum.

From my years at Windows Secrets, where we did not offer advice or assistance via DM, but only in the lounge, I posted the OP as requested.  I’ve also bolded the warnings about the procedure.

Microfix wrote:

Win11 needs an online MSFT account (mandatory for Home Editions even if you don’t currently have one using Win10)..think about it.

Windows 11 Pro does not need a Microsoft account.  It is a requirement for Home.

Microfix wrote:

IMO the risks outweigh the potential

I follow my own advice, and offer it freely. The first line in my signature is “Create a fresh drive image before making system changes, in case you need to start over!”

bbearren wrote:

The first and most important step is to create a complete drive image set of your entire current installation of Windows, including the EFI partition, in case something goes south on you. The upgrade will re-write the EFI partition, and your PC could likely become unbootable should something go amiss with the upgrade and you want to regress to Windows 10. It is much simpler and easier to restore a drive image set than to jump through a bunch of hoops just trying to get your PC to boot.

Having the foresight and ability to dance into and out of the fire has a tendency to remove the FUD.  Over the years Microsoft has said that a great many things are either not possible, will cause big problems, or both.  Over the years I’ve found that a lot of that is simply not true in my experience.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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As I already had W10 21H1 installation media on a USB flash drive (to act as the “install.esd” wrapper software, without needing to download it again) and bbearen’s method looks the simplest method to install W11 on incompatible PC hardware (according to Microsoft’s arbitrary criteria), I thought I would try it out on the spare disk drive I use for experimenting in one of my old PCs. This PC is “incompatible” in several ways: CPU (i5 2400), old-style BCD boot method, no TPM 2.0 (TPM 1.2, but not selected in BIOS) and no secure boot.

The W11 installation process completed (offline) as bbearen describes above, apparently without problems. Connecting online there was a Windows Defender update (this was done before the 1st Patch Tuesday) and the thing activated using the digital licence (the PC’s W10 licence presumably).

I tweaked a few things. The taskbar setting tick box moved the icons from the centre to the left. Open-shell restored my usual Start menu. Unfortunately “Old New Explorer” did not restore the traditional “menu bar” to Explorer windows.

Looking more closely I started to see some anomalies.

Although Windows Defender seemed to be there to some extent, on selecting Windows Security in the Settings, I just got a blank window, so no way to adjust it or start a scan or anything like that. It seems that “my” PC not meeting Microsoft’s W11 security requirements means I cannot run Windows security in the usual (W10-like) way.

The Windows Firewall did seem to be working and I could get to its settings (via the Open-shell Start menu – I don’t know if it would have been accessible via the W11 UI).

I thought: OK, maybe I need to mentally go back to earlier Windows versions and use 3rd party security solutions. By chance I had a Panda AV online installer on a USB stick so ran it, but in response W11 disabled the network connection. (It is a desktop PC with no WiFi, just a cabled connection, so I don’t know if wireless would have been disabled also.) I needed to restart the PC to get a (public) network connection back again.

I also had a Panda AV offline installer, ran it and although it did install the AV software, when it tried to connect to the internet to activate the AV (usual practice for Panda AV), again W11 disabled the network connection.

I also tried both a Firefox online and offline Firefox installer, and again W11 disabled the network connection.

I don’t know if this W11 crippling of network connection on an incompatible PC is deliberate, intended (commercial “protectionism”?) functionality by Microsoft, or a bug as a result of not meeting their “security” requirements (TPM, secure boot etc.), or a bug accidentally introduced having installed using the “bbearen method”, but whatever the reason this was a fatal blow in my attempt to run W11 on that PC.

I thought that I would pass on my experience in case it is of interest to others 🙂

 

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anonymous wrote:

Although Windows Defender seemed to be there to some extent, on selecting Windows Security in the Settings, I just got a blank window, so no way to adjust it or start a scan or anything like that. It seems that “my” PC not meeting Microsoft’s W11 security requirements means I cannot run Windows security in the usual (W10-like) way.

I haven’t used the Defender UI in years.  I consider security scans part of routine maintenance, and as such I have them set up in Task Scheduler.  After reading your post, I checked Settings and got the same results.

However, checking Task Scheduler scheduled task for Defender, my daily scan, my weekly full scan, have completed successfully.  As Microsoft Defender has some additional duties under the Trusted Platform Module, that may explain why it isn’t fully available in Settings.  I’m satisfied that it is running as it should based on the Task Scheduler results.

As far as installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, I’m not advocating it.  The OP was in answer to an AskWoody Lounger request.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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Windows Security opens just fine for me from the Settings app on my test system running under Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.258). First click “Privacy & security”:

Then click “Windows Security”:

Then click “Open Windows Security”:

Then click “Virus & threat protection”:

Then click “Scan options”:

Everything looks fine to me.  Here’s what I see in
C:Program FilesWindows Defender

And here is Windows Security as seen in the Task Manager:

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB

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bbearren

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Commenter #2395860 above further writes:

I had originally tried installing W11 last weekend before the 1st Patch Tuesday, so thought it might be worth updating this weekend to see if the updates improved things. Some things improved e.g. attempting to run an installer did not cause the network connections to be blocked any longer, but other things remained broken e.g. the Windows Security settings still showed blank windows and more of the other Settings app windows were blocked/locked.

Before finally abandoning this experiment I decided to perform an offline W11 “Reset” (I could still reach the Reset window in the Settings app). After this “Reset” completed W11 looked in much better shape. (The “Reset” took account of the Patch Tuesday updates – no further update occurred when I connected online again.) I can now see the Windows Security settings, the Settings app does not lock up and more Settings app windows are now visible, and program installers do not cause network connection failure. The only failure I saw so far was that the Edge browser was now broken (it had been OK previously). I ran an offline Edge installer and this re-installed/fixed it.

So there may be some more life in this experiment after all. TBD when I have some more time 🙂

 

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bbearren

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This commenter #2396341 continues …

Over the last week I have repeated this process using the “bbearen method” with my 2 other PCs which do not meet the Microsoft requirements, both with the same results. I now have Macrium Reflect images for all 3 PCs.

Thinking about this some more, I realised that my W10 starting point for the W11 “upgrade” were versions 20H2, 1909 and 1909 respectively, so it is possible that starting from those older W10 versions might still leave problems below the surface. (I don’t normally use W10 on these PCs, and these earlier versions were from system partition images I took the last time I upgraded earlier W10 images as experiments – much like this W11 experiment.)

Assuming that the W11 digital licence for these PCs would be on some Microsoft server somewhere “in the cloud” and would be picked up later, I decided to try offline “bare metal” W11 installations (using the spare disk) by booting the PCs from the modified “bbearen method” USB stick containing the W11 “install.esd” surrounded by the W10 wrapper software.

These were successful (as far as I can tell so far). The Windows Security settings were immediately accessible (no W11 “Reset” needed), the Settings app has not so far locked up (I haven’t checked everything, but I have checked a lot) and the handful of 3rd party installers I’ve tried (Open-shell, MyDefrag to defrag the HDD after installation and cleanup …) worked without problem. After connecting online the PCs activated as I had hoped. I was able to update to the Patch Tuesday updates and some Windows Defender updates. I have taken system partition images for these, probably improved Windows 11 for all 3 PCs.

My reason for trying this: I have W8.1 on the desktop and laptop I use day-to-day, so in the next 18 months or so I’ll need to decide what to do when Microsoft stop W8.1 support. (I’m less concerned by Patch Tuesday updates ending and more concerned by 3rd party internet facing program developers (the browser and security software people) using this as justification for ending their updates for W8.1 PCs. I think it important for internet facing s/w being up to date, less important for local s/w.) I could (hold my nose – I don’t much like W10) and change to W1o for a couple of years and face the same problem again then, or based on this work maybe I could bypass W10 and (hold my nose) and go straight to W11, possibly indefinately instead. Decisions, decisions!

I quite like the idea of Linux, but I have a Windows only program I use regularly with no viable Linux alternative (I’ve looked). It also needs .NET 4.8 so would (I imagine) be difficult to run in WINE (or whatever in Linux world), so I probably need to continue with Windows in at least some limited form (dual booting or whatever).

I hope that this might be of interest to someone 🙂

 

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bbearren

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This commenter #2396341 continues …

I have taken this experiment further by further tweaking to make it more like my usual W8.1 (and possible future W10) partition, installed usual 3rd party programs, copied/cloned it from a test HDD to a SSD to get a more realistic real-time performance and included it in my PC in a triple-boot arrangement. Here are a few observations from all of this which may be of interest.

In both W8.1 and W10 partitions I replaced the file explorer “ribbon” with the classic “menu bar” using the 3rd party tool “Old New Explorer (ONE)”. This did not work with W11. However I found that I could get it to work in a 2 stage process. Initially I restored the “ribbon” using the 3rd part Winaero Tweaker tool and then I replaced the restored “ribbon” using ONE with the classic “menu bar”. (I copied the other ONE settings from W8.1, so I don’t have to make a conscious effort to find things and can rely on mechanical memory.)

I use Open Shell to restore the “classic” start menu in all Windows partitions (even W7), so again my muscle memory is satisifed.

Initially there did not appear to be any side-effects to these changes, but following a later Windows update, the network icon stopped being displayed in the lower right notification area. I don’t know if this is a side-effect or would have disappeared anyway, but I can live with it and prefer the traditional file explorer.

As this is an old, ~9 year old Dell Optiplex 790, I installed the light-weight Panda free AV to get a more responsive feel to the PC (and reduce RAM usage a bit, although I forgot to take numbers before and after for comparison).

I use “O&O ShutUp 10” (now also covering W11) to control as many of the privacy settings and cut down the number of pointless W11 background processes as possible. I always disable unneccesary services (search indexing, UPNP etc.) and some tasks (Customer Experience … etc). Overall, with this slimming down, W11 on SSD feels roughly as responsive as W10 or W8.1 on SSD. I don’t have any hard numbers, this is just a feeling, but that is what counts at the end of the day.

I use the 3rd party (now Malwarebytes owned) Windows Firewall Control (WFC) to enhance the Windows Firewall and give more control over outgoing internet accesses. I used a W10 policy as my starting point rather than starting from scratch. I have had to add a few more rules for extra Microsoft W11 processes, but fewer extra rules than I expected before starting, suggesting that W11 is not that much different to W10 below the surface.

Although the (enhanced) Windows Firewall is working as indicated by the classic interface from the still accessible Control Panel and the new “Windows Security” app’s main page, the app’s detailed “Windows Firewall” page indicates that the firewall is not running. I can temporarily disable/enable rules to convince myself that it is really running. The “Windows Security” app detailed page indications are an error, the left hand of the app not knowing what the right hand is doing or what is really happening.

I have now made 3 of the monthly W11 cumulative updates (using the 3rd party wumgr tool) and these have largely completed successfully (the missing network notification icon an exception).

I had installed both the Firefox and Pale Moon browsers early on. I found that these would not update internally (using the “Help > about …” & “Check for Updates” buttons). I previously had a similar problem in a W10 partition which I later fixed by re-installing W10 of the same version over the top of the installed W10, so assuming a similar issue in W11 I suspect that this is a W11 bug rather than a deliberate attempt by Microsoft to cripple a rival product. I haven’t tried a W11 re-installation to confirm this theory, but will wait for a later W11 “feature upgrade” or whatever marketing jargon they will use then.

The “Task Manager” is no longer accessible by clicking the mouse right button over the taskbar which I found annoying. However there is a “Task Manager” button in the Open-Shell modified Start Menu, so I used the “Pin to Taskbar” context menu instruction to add its icon to the right hand side of the Taskbar. This is a close enough simulation of the traditional behaviour.

Despite being unable to drag and drop to the Taskbar, I’ve used this “Pin to Taskbar” right click thing to attach my usual icons to the Taskbar.

I run browsers in a Sandboxie sandbox most of the time (except when updating the browser or browser extensions). Although this sandboxed browsing seems to work, the deleting of the sandbox after all sandboxed processes have ended does not complete properly (the red cross icon remains in the notification area and the cleaning process using Sysinternals “sdelete” continues to run as seen in Task Manager). I haven’t investigated this problem.

So where does all of this leave me? Well I still cannot shake off the feeling of Microsoft looking over my shoulder when using both W11 and W10, even after privacy mitigations and slimming down, so I intend to continue with W8.1 for as long as possible.

At that time although this experiment shows I probably could use W11 on this PC if I had to, W10 will probably be a better bet, particularly if Microsoft’s “find other ways to monetise users” activities will now be focused on W11 and not W10. (It will be necessary to keep a look out for them back-porting W11 badness to W10.)

I hope this is of interest to someone.

 

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Commenter #2396341 (aka Garbo – I forgot to include my alias originally) writes: A brief update on my experiment using the “bbearren method” …

I restored the system partition image of Windows 11 (W11) installed on an incompatible PC (as described in the sub-thread above) to one of my PCs and tried to update to the latest W11. It did not show a “feature update”, but I thought that might require a servicing stack update, so I let the updates shown be downloaded and installed. After this completed the “file explorer” did not work properly (its setup did not complete, no taskbar or notification area icons and a flashed screen every few seconds). As I had spent time a year ago tweaking to make explorer more like earlier Windows, I’m not surprised that there were problems later 🙂

I put together a USB memory stick with W11 22H2 “install” inside a W10 22H2 wrapper as described by the OP “bbearren” above and did a “bare metal” installation. This worked with this later installation s/w. The thing activated, presumably with the licence created 18 months ago.

I restored the up to date W10 22H2 system image for this PC with all of my 3rd party programs and tweaks, and using the USB stick did an inside Windows “upgrade” to replace W10 with W11 while leaving my programs and data in place. This took a while, but completed surprisingly successfully, with fewer settings changes to be corrected than I had expected. (I didn’t keep a list or numbers, but I remember that in “O&O ShutUp10/11” there were 7 or 8 red setting changes under the “user” column and just 2 under the “machine” column, compared to the previous settings when running W10.) I needed to reverse the changes I make to W10 using “OldNewExplorer” to restore the “menu bar” and uninstalled “OldNewExplorer”, to make “File Explorer” look OK i.e. remove a black coloured bar across the top of the window. I tried a few 3rd party programs and all seemed well.

The big problem was that the “Security” app (the thing behind the fuzzy blue shield icon in W11 & the clear white shield icon in W10) did not open, but stalled so that I could not see any of the security related settings. (If run from inside the “Settings” app the “Settings” app itself also stalled and other sections could not be seleted.)

Although my PC does not have TPM 2.0, it does have TPM 1.2 h/w, so I enabled this and made it visible to the OS by adjusting the BIOS settings. This did not allow the “Security” app to run (to possibly report the TPM mismatch).

Thinking the problem might be due to the presence of a 3rd party AV, I restored the W10 image again, uninstalled Panda AV and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and repeated the W10 to W11 “upgrade”. (Although this was the scan only, free version of MBAM now, it had been a premium “real time” trial version on 1st installation and might have left some remnants behind which might have interferred with the “Security” app, or so I thought.) The end result was the same – no “Security” app functionality.

I was able to re-install Panda and Malwarebytes, expecting that this would disable the uncontrollable Windows Defender. There were some Defender components in RAM (according to Task Manager), but these did not seem to be running (using CPU cycles according to Task Manager). As I use the Windows Firewall (enhanced by Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control) and this was working correctly, I did not want to risk messing with this by attempting to stop the other parts of Defender in RAM. Defender was using less RAM with Panda running than without Panda, so maybe that is just how it is in W11 when a 3rd party AV is running.

So my conclusions from all of this are:

1) The “bbearren method” as described in this thread still works with 22H2 versions of W11 inside a W10 wrapper, for either a “bare metal” installation or an inside W10 “upgrade”. You may have some security related issues although you may be able to work around them. BTW: I had acquired a W11 licence 18 months ago on my 1st W10 to W11 “upgrade”, so I cannot say that this licence updating will still work now, just that the Windows OS s/w replacement still works now – just to be clear.

2) If running W10 on a W11 incompatible PC, then at present it is best to continue with W10. I can see nothing in W11 that is better than W10, and you may have instability problems, if not now, then maybe in the future.

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Cybertooth

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A little more about the failing “Security” app …

Going back to the “bare metal” W11 installation, this worked as expected. It had worked fine in W10 before the W11 “upgrade”, so it was something in that “upgrade” process that broke it.

The “Security” app depends on the “Windows Security [Health] Service” running. In “bare metal” W11 it is not running at PC startup, but it is a “manual” service and starts running when the “Security” app is started and continues running thereafter. In W10 although “manual” it is already running after PC startup, presumably to service the “Security” app in the notification area at the bottom of the desktop.

In the W10 to W11 “upgrade” the “Windows Security [Health] Service” does not appear to start when the “Security” app is started. While the “Security” app is still trying to start (its window is open, but still blank), trying to start the service manually from “services.msc” under the “Computer Management” thing, shows the progress bar move about 1/4 of the way along before disappearing and an error message saying something like “some services stop if nothing indicates it is using the service” (I did not write down the exact wording). In this case I would have expected the starting/opening/running “Security” app would have indicated it needed to use the service. So it looks as if the “Security” app does not start the service or does not inform the service that it needs to continue using it, so the service stops.

So if I want to use W11 on this PC and have a functioning and controllable “Windows Security” system via the “Security” app, I would need to start with the “bare metal” W11 installation, re-populate with 3rd party programs and tweak and adjust to suit, taking system image backups at intervals just in case I broke “Windows Security” along the way. I don’t need to face that for another 2.5 years at least (and maybe a later W10 to W11 “upgrade” with later W11 installation media will not cause the same problem).

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Unblocking Windows 11 Update (another take)

Summary:

Updating to Windows 11 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.194) on my 2008 vintage Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400 based HP Compaq 8000 Elite USDT PC test system running Windows 10 21H1 was possible using only the Windows 11 RTM ISO file from Microsoft and Notepad++ v7.9.5 as a binary editor.

Details:

The Windows 11 RTM ISO was gotten from Download Windows 11.
I used wget to preserve the time and date information so that DIR shows:
09/14/2021 10:57 AM 5,497,985,024 Win11_English_x64.iso
The SHA256 for that file is given by Microsoft as:

667BD113A4DEB717BC49251E7BDC9F09C2DB4577481DDFBCE376436BEB9D1D2F

Windows Update showed:

The PC Health Check shows:

Device does not meet these requirements:
Old generation CPU, only version 1.2 TPM and no Secure Boot.

The rest of the requirements are met:
At least 4 GB memory, disk size OK, at least 2 CPU cores and 1 GHz or faster CPU.

So buzz off, shoo fly!

But wait! Microsoft, caveat emptor, in “Ways to install Windows 11” presents that:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup]
“AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU”=dword:00000001

allows you to bypass these blocks.

No so fast grasshopper! While this bypasses the check for TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is still required) and the CPU family and model, it turns out that Secure Boot is still required! Gotcha!

Well maybe not… It has been suggested you could get and extract the Windows 10 21H1 ISO file and copy the

\sources\install.wim

from the Windows 11 RTM ISO file to that and then run the setup.exe from that mangled result. Or you could boot into repair mode and use DISM to apply the install.wim directly to the system.

But wait, would it even actually run afterwards? So I came across this video “DON’T buy a new PC for Windows 11! – How to install” which at 13:48 into it shows Windows 11 running on my Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400! Rewind to watch the whole video.

Further back in the video the registry keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
“BypassTPMCheck”=dword:00000001
“BypassSecureBootCheck”=dword:00000001

are suggested. However adding the “BypassSecureBootCheck” key did not work for me as this probably only worked on the insider edition.

The video also rashly suggests copying

\sources\appraiser.dll

from the Windows 10 ISO to the Windows 11 RTM ISO file as a possible fix. Elsewhere it is suggested that simply deleting

\sources\appraiser.dll

is enough.
As appraiser.dll is a resource DLL which it turns out basically just contains an INI file, I explored it using Notepad++ looking for “TPM”.

I found changing “T:DT_ALL_UEF_UefiSecureBootBlockingSV” from TRUE to FALS and saving appraiser.dll from Notepad++ which preserves binary bytes was enough along with the AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU registry key to get past the block when running the update.

Note that only 4 bytes are changed keeping the DLL file size and structure intact. I did not correct the DLL checksum.

Thereafter I just deleted the those registry keys I had added and changed two more settings in appraiser.dll and saved it again. The result looks like this:

[DT_ANY_SVH_BlockingSV]
T:DT_ALL_CCO_DualCoreBlockingSV=TRUE
T:DT_ALL_MEM_MemoryBlockingSV=TRUE
T:DT_ALL_CPS_CpuSpeedBlockingSV=TRUE
T:DT_ALL_SDS_SystemDiskSizeBlockingSV=TRUE
T:DT_ALL_UEF_UefiSecureBootBlockingSV=FALS
T:DT_ALL_SMO_SModeStateBlockingSV=TRUE
T:DT_ALL_TPM_TpmVersionBlockingSVSetup=FALS
T:DT_ALL_CFM_CpuFmsBlockingSVSetup=FALS

From a command window running “FC /B” to compare the original and changed file confirms only 12 bytes have changed.

0001C093: 54 46
0001C094: 52 41
0001C095: 55 4C
0001C096: 45 53
0001C0E8: 54 46
0001C0E9: 52 41
0001C0EA: 55 4C
0001C0EB: 45 53
0001C111: 54 46
0001C112: 52 41
0001C113: 55 4C
0001C114: 45 53

Then I confidently ran setup.exe and as expected the block was passed and this “What needs your attention” warning is presented:

All this testing and then followed by this actual update was done with the device disconnected from the network.

At this point I allowed the Windows 11 Pro RTM Update to continue instead of canceling it again. At “Ready to install” it shows the “Keep personal files and apps” is checked.

It took 40 minutes to get to the first reboot and 15 minutes before the login screen was presented.

After logging in a lot time passed as the as “Wait… Getting Windows Ready for you…” messages appeared however no further input was requested.

Finally finished, it looks like all settings were retained and things that were uninstalled remained uninstalled with the exception of Edge which was again reinstalled.

Another video also from “Linus Tech Tips” titled “Windows 11 is bigger than we thought” gives a good look at many of the notable changes.

All the windows have small rounded corners. Additional toolbars are no longer supported. All the icons are grouped together in the center.

A right click on the task bar only gives [ * Taskbar settings ] to click where I was able to turn off Widgets and Chat on the taskbar.

I used Ctrl-Alt-Del to be able to click to run Task Manager then selected More details.

Remember this is just a test system. I don’t plan on using for anything else.

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB

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Opps… My mistake, that should have been appraiserres.dll in the sources directory which is the file with the INI data for the appraiser. It is so much harder to catch one’s own mistakes…

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB

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Clicking Start shows this:

So winver now shows Windows 11 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.194):

Finally I reconnected to the network and clicked Check for updates.

So winver now shows Windows 11 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.258):

Windows Update > Update History is pretty unremarkable(before check for updates):

After updates were installed to get to Windows 11 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.258:

It continues to work for now. I haven’t found any aps that don’t work under Windows 11 that worked under Windows 10.

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB

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bbearren

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Windows 11 Pro does not need a Microsoft account. It is a requirement for Home.

indeed. while an MS account may be required for Win11 home edition, there is a way to install & run Win11 Home with just a local account as described here.

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EyesOnWindows wrote:

Elsewhere it is suggested that simply deleting

\sources\appraiser.dll

is enough.

I actually tried deleting the \sources\appraiser.dll file and that crashed Win11 setup while running it inside Win10. not a good idea to remove that file, just replace it with a Win10 version – using Win11 build 22000.194 install media with a Win10 build 17763 version of appraiser.dll

though I had much better success by replacing the other “appraiser” file – appraiserres.dll instead of appraiser.dll which did allow the Win10 to Win11 upgrade on my unsupported Toshiba 2013 laptop

2 users thanked author for this post.

bbearren, EyesOnWindows

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Ashampoo Windows 11 Check & Enable 1.0.0

Is your PC ready for Windows 11? If not, would you still like to install it anyway?
Check your Windows 11 compatibility and enable OS installation

Even if your PC is deemed incompatible, there’s a loophole: Windows 11 Check & Enable can allow your PC to install Windows 11 in the event of an incompatible CPU or missing TPM 2.0 support! In this case, the far more prevalent TPM 1.20 is all you need. Windows 11 Check & Enable can add two Registry entries to your system to allow installation of Windows 11 anyway..

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Alex5723 wrote:

Even if your PC is deemed incompatible, there’s a loophole: Windows 11 Check & Enable can allow your PC to install Windows 11 in the event of an incompatible CPU or missing TPM 2.0 support! In this case, the far more prevalent TPM 1.20 is all you need. Windows 11 Check & Enable can add two Registry entries to your system to allow installation of Windows 11 anyway..

The method outlined in the OP requires no download other than Windows 10/11 ISO’s, does not even require TPM 1.2.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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Editing appraiserres.dll in the sources directory was easier for me. It should also result in everything that setup.exe may do to the account for missing hardware support during installation occurring. It should be possible to do a clean install with this using a USB memory stick or DVD to a blank disk as well. It would be very interesting to see if it still formats a disk with MBR in the absence of UEFI…

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB

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techrepublic.com publish the ISO workaround for installing Windows 11 on unsupported PCs.

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Alex5723 wrote:

techrepublic.com publish the ISO workaround for installing Windows 11 on unsupported PCs.

“It is important to note that successful Windows 11 installations will still require TPM 1.2″

The procedure in the OP does not require TPM at all.

The procedure outlined by @EyesOnWindows does not require TPM at all.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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If you device does not support Windows 11 then it is not recommended to upgrade. You might face incompatibility issues after the Upgrade. To check whether your PC supports Windows 11 or not, you can download PC Health Check tool. To get more information on it go through this link: https://www.tipsoverflow.com/why-i-can-not-upgrade-to-windows-11/

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I used the method shown in the original post above and installed Windows 11 using the swapping of install.wim files into the Windows 10 ISO.  It worked nicely on my 8 year old ASUS UX51VZ notebook.  This notebook was sort of a gaming machine and had an i7, and 12GB RAM.  Unfortunately it had no TPM on the motherboard.  I figured it would run well as this was a very high end machine.

The ONLY issue I have is the same as some other posters above in that the Windows Security Center screens just show up blank.  However, I continue to get Windows defender updates and notifications that Defender did not find any issues.

Also, I’m still getting Windows Updates and just got 2021-11 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems (KB5007262) today.  I wonder if MS will ever follow through with their threat to stop updates on unsupported machines.

I realize I didn’t really need to update this machine as it was working fine, but I like to fiddle with them and just wanted to see if I could do it.  Thanks for the great instructions by the OP above.

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bbearren

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I came across scanning software for Ford manufactured vehicles that runs on Windows and uses a USB connected OBDII reader. I decided to get my Dell Latitude E5420 out of mothballs, update it and put it to good use. I decided to restore my last known good drive image (10/26/2020), so I took out the SSD, plugged it into the drive dock on my NAS for the restore, and gave the laptop a good cleaning. I don’t really need to dual boot Windows 10 Pro anymore, so I decided to trim it down. The platform does not support Windows 10, the UEFI does not support secure boot. However, it ran very nicely and without any hiccups for years.

In the process of removing a Windows installation I managed to pooch the BCD store. Upon further examination, the old BCD store had 5 derelict entries, 4 from Dell firmware updates way back in the day (I bought it in 2011). So I renamed it BCD.old and created a new BCD store. That sorted nicely. I got it down to a single installation, used BootIt UEFI to delete the no-longer-needed partitions and consolidated the empty space into the OS and data partitions.

Then I came across a new-to-me method to install Windows 11 22H2 on unsupported hardware, and decided to give that a try. The YouTube video is here, and the script is here.  I used the Direct Download link. The script runs very quickly. It shims the installation into a Windows Server routine and does some more magic. I ran an in-place upgrade and Windows 11 Pro 22H2 installed without issue or hiccup. I ran Windows update (twice) and it’s now running Windows 11 Pro Version 22H2 (OS Build 22621.2361).

Then I used NTLite to take out the trash, everything looks good and it runs without issue or hiccup.  It doesn’t run like a twelve year-old laptop, it has some snap to it; there is a noticeable improvement in performance over Windows 10 Pro.

Of course, all the usual caveats apply; make a fresh drive image before making any changes, run as a member of the Administrators group, YMMV, etc.  I’m not advocating, I’m just informing.

<edited per posts #2591385 and #2591399>

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

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Cybertooth

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bbearren wrote:

It doesn’t run like a twenty year-old laptop

It doesn’t run like a 20 year old laptop because it isn’t. The first Latitude E5420’s came out in 2011. There is no way it would run Windows 11 if it were 20 years old – the processor wouldn’t be x64 in a laptop of that era – and there is no way you bought it in 2003, because it didn’t exist.

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KS wrote:

It doesn’t run like a 20 year old laptop because it isn’t. The first Latitude E5420’s came out in 2011.

Thanks, my bad.  It was my Latitude D800 that I bought in 2003.  I bought the E5420 in 2011.  So, it doesn’t run like a 12 year old laptop, either.  I’ll edit my post to correct that.  Still, there is a noticeable improvement with Windows 11 Pro vs Windows 10 Pro.

I did have my D800 running Windows 7 32-bit.  It had XP Pro when I bought it.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

TechTango

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uhh, it got some error thing, that says: “Windows 10 Setup
Windows Setup cannot start due to missing installation files. If you previously launched Setup from a local directory, copy all the installation files to the directory again and relaunch Setup” and only option being “OK”
how do i fix it?

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ok, so i got it to semi work, it does the thing, but windows stays at 10, and doesn’t reboot

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Did you create the installation folder on a separate disk / USB stick?
“Semi work” meaning? We need more details please.

cheers, Paul

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