Rufus posts unsupported CPU bypass for Windows 11 24H2 in-place upgrade..

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Rufus posts unsupported CPU bypass for Windows 11 24H2 in-place upgrade but not for everyone

..on the home users side of things, users with unsupported hardware are also trying to have a taste of the latest version of Windows and one of the popular tools that is useful in such a case is Rufus…

For in-place upgrades, you need to run the following from an elevated command prompt before running setup.exe

reg.exe delete “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\CompatMarkers” /f 2>NUL

reg.exe delete “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Shared” /f 2>NUL

reg.exe delete “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators” /f 2>NUL

reg.exe add “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\HwReqChk” /f /v HwReqChkVars /t REG_MULTI_SZ /s , /d “SQ_SecureBootCapable=TRUE,SQ_SecureBootEnabled=TRUE,SQ_TpmVersion=2,SQ_RamMB=8192,”

reg.exe add “HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup” /f /v AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU /t REG_DWORD /d 1

I’ll add this batch script to the created media in a future version of Rufus…

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BobbyB, Carl D

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Thanks Alex.

I used this to upgrade an “unsupported” PC to 24H2 last week.

I believe the current version of Rufus (4.5) still works for clean installs of 24H2 though (with the bypasses ‘ticked’ in the options).

The “unsupported” CPU’s still require POPCNT and SSE4.2 – there’s no known ways to bypass those at the moment.

 

 

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Alex5723

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Just a reminder again to make sure you add original content when you post .  Thank you for understanding.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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satrow

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Rufus Isn’t even the original source for the bypass

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Microfix, satrow, PKCano

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abbodi86 wrote:

Rufus Isn’t even the original source for the bypass

Why is that relevant? I’ve seen a lot of hate for Rufus online and could never understand why.

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b

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The ability to verify sources is pretty important vital. Naming the source is also polite.

Tracking back to the original can very difficult esp. with popular subjects that go ‘viral’ rapidly, a lot of fluff and obfuscation requires blowing away before checking that the original – not poisoned or silently modified – data is retained in subsequent references.

Making modifications isn’t necessarily bad but they should point back to the origin as a tip ‘o’ the hat/chapeau.

Oh, and it’s not a Rufus thing, even our OP here struggles to find time to track down sources. People aren’t clones, we can’t all do one thing in completely identical ways. Aren’t brains wonderful!

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Rufus Alpha including bypass upgrade is available

https://www.neowin.net/news/rufus-posts-unsupported-cpu-bypass-for-windows-11-24h2-in-place-upgrade-but-not-for-everyone/

Update, October 7 2024:

Note that, with the next release of Rufus, you’ll simply be able to double click on setup.exe to perform in-place upgrades, as Rufus will create a setup.exe wrapper that applies the registry bypasses before running the original Microsoft setup…

* Not a Windows 11 user (don’t think I ever will).

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BobbyB

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How to upgrade to Windows 11 24H2 on unsupported hardware, step-by-step walkthrough

If you have installed Windows 11 on a PC that does not meet the system requirements of the operating system, then you face an issue with every new feature update release…

The release of Windows 11, version 24H2 marks a new adds more roadblocks to the process. Thankfully, there is a way to bypass requirement checks and upgrade an older version of Windows 11 to the 2024 feature update release.

The following paragraphs provide a step-by-step walkthrough on how that is done. The method should also work if you are stuck on a particular version of Windows 11…

One of the best options to do so is to use Rufus…

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Cybertooth

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I tested the 24H2 upgrade on a VMware virtual machine running Windows 11 23H2 Pro (No Secure Boot, Legacy Boot, MBR partitioning, no TPM) by attaching the 24H2 iso file downloaded from Microsoft to the virtual machine, and then running the command

setup /product server

from the virtual CD drive inside the virtual machine.

It worked. The virtual machine was successfully upgraded to 24H2.

If you wish to perform a clean installation of (or upgrade to) Windows 11 24H2 on unsupported hardware (the CPU must support SSE4.2 or 24H2 won’t boot afterwards) then I agree that using Rufus to create a suitable USB boot drive is a good way.

This “product server” trick to bypass checks might no longer work in future builds of Windows 11 though :
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/microsoft-patches-tpm-20-bypass-to-prevent-windows-11-installs-on-pcs-with-unsupported-cpus

So enjoy it while you can. I am doing this as a test and to get a 24H2 installation on hand to test it and see what it is. I am NOT going to run Windows 11 on my computers for the foreseeable future.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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Cybertooth

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I like Rufus. I always grab the latest and then use it. For my up-to-date 23H2, I checked everything except the first one (since I have a current hardware) and the update from the iso clicking on setup, was easy – 10 min for the new updates and then ~25 min for the install. No problems. I thought I might have to “fix” StartAllBack, but nope! all was fine. At this point (with the dynamic updates) I find 24H2 is fine. WuMgr is now showing cumulative updates for both windows and .NET. I’ll do those when I’m bored – got errands first.

(local non-MS login)

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PL1

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Rufus 4.6 BETA

“Add a new setup.exe wrapper to bypass Windows 11 24H2 in-place upgrade restrictions (#2568)
Add TimeZone to regional options replication (#2499)
Set local account passwords to not expire by default
Fix an error when trying to write compressed VHD images (#2468)
Fix an error when invoking Rufus from the PowerShell commandline (#2556)
Improve revoked UEFI bootloaders check to support Linux SBAT, Windows SVN and cert DBX”

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a, PL1

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yeah I just fixed that “passwords expire” thing LOL

They do a lot of work on this. We should donate to them! Note to self!

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PL1, Alex5723

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very helpful – update to 24h2 without problem setup /product server

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Rufus 4.6.2208

Portable

Changelog:

Version 4.6 (2024.10.21)

Add a new setup.exe wrapper to bypass Windows 11 24H2 in-place upgrade restrictions
Add TimeZone to regional options replication
Set local account passwords to not expire by default
Fix an error when trying to write compressed VHD images
Fix an error when invoking Rufus from the PowerShell commandline
Improve revoked UEFI bootloaders check to support Linux SBAT, Windows SVN and cert DBX
Improve support for ReactOS boot media

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PL1

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Rufus version 4.7

..Fix a side-loading vulnerability [CVE-2025-26624] with cfgmgr32.dll..

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PL1

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I have a old Lenovo ThinkPad T530 currently running Windows 11 23H2 without any problems.  But when trying update, it inplace to Windows 24H2 with a current ISO from Microsoft it goes through the complete install but when it tries to reboot it fails.  I then tried to make a Bootable USB drive with Rufus 4.7 and do an inplace update with the same result.  I tried to boot the PC from the USB drive checked the USB drive and found it was not bootable.  Rufus 4.7 did not copy the OS files from the ISO to the USB.  This left the USB not bootable.  It appears that Microsoft has a compatibility check that disables the OS filles transfer.

I also have 2-year-old ThinkPAD that meets all the requirements and is running Windows 11 24H2.  Ii make a clone of that drive and tested it on the T530 and it works perfectly.

Therefore, it appears that there is a check blocks the OS files from being installed that Rufus does not currently remove.

Ross

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This happens if the CPU doesn’t support SSE 4.2 instructions and there’s currently no known workaround to get the install to boot successfully.

Microsoft blocks some PCs from Windows 11 24H2 — CPU must support SSE4.2 or the OS will not boot

While your cloning a working copy of 24H2 onto a PC where it failed to boot after the install would “seem” to be a solution, it requires a second PC already running 24H2 which isn’t really a viable solution that either Rufus or most users could easily implement.

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n0ads wrote:

there’s currently no known workaround to get the install to boot successfully.

Yes, there is with Flyby11

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If you actually read the description of Flyby11, it first checks whether or not the CPU supports POPCNT & SSE 4.2.

In the first step, you’ll simply be informed whether an upgrade is possible or not. If you see two red checkmarks in the compatibility checker, an upgrade using this app is pretty much off the table.

So it does not allow installation of 24H2 on such systems!

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Alex5723, satrow

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n0ads wrote:

If you see two red checkmarks in the compatibility checker, an upgrade using this app is pretty much off the table.

This contradict developer’s statement of :

Don’t let Microsoft boss you around and upgrade to Windows 11 even if your hardware doesn’t meet the requirements. Just use the Flyby11 app..

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Alex5723 wrote:

This contradict developer’s statement of : Don’t let Microsoft boss you around and upgrade to Windows 11 even if your hardware doesn’t meet the requirements. Just use the Flyby11 app..

Alex, that statement may have been written by the developer before Microsoft drew the line in the sand with their strict enforcement of requiring POPCNT and SSE 4.2.

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n0ads, satrow

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