fygjam Posted November 3, 2023 Share Posted November 3, 2023 (edited) Wanna install Windows11 on old hardware that doesn't provide TPM or secure boot support. If so then read on. I got this from YouTube, just save you having to watch the video. Usual caveats. This is for shits and giggles. Take a backup of anything that's important. Ever since W11 was released with its enhanced hardware requirements there have been ways for installing on unsupported hardware. Some are a bit of a pain. The following will update a running system to W11 without having to modify the registry during the upgrade or creating a special ISO image. Open a browser and go to https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11 Navigate down to Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices Click on the Select Download dropdown. There is only one option. Select Windows 11 (multi-edition ISO for x64 devices) Select your product language. Must match the language of the current system you are running on, probably English (United States) Click on Confirm It will provide a button to click on to start the download. It's a fairly meaty download. 6.2GB for the W11 23H2 version which just dropped yesterday. Now, as you probably are aware, an ISO file is just a contained file full of other files and we want to extract all of these files to a folder. Right clicking on the ISO file just downloaded may give the option to mount the ISO file in a virtual CD drive. Some of the ZIP utilities can open ISO files, I prefer 7-ZIP. Create a new folder on the 😄 drive, eg. W11 Extract all the files from the ISO file to the new folder (this may take some time, there's a boatload of files). If all went well you should have the following files and folders in the new folder. Open a command prompt (CMD)with Administrator privileges (right click and run as Administrator). Navigate to the new folder where you extracted the files from the ISO file to.eg. cd C:\W11 Enter the following command setup.exe /product server Although various outputs may say "Installing Windows server" it will install Windows 11 Pro. Follow the bouncing ball. At one point it will ask Preserve all settings and apps Preserve only personal files Preserve nothing Make your choice. It will grind away and eventually boot into you new Windows 11 system. You will probably need a fair amount of free disk space, maybe 50GB. When it has finished there will be another folder Windows.old See Settings->Storage on how to clean up from the install. Enjoy The short version Download ISO file Extract contents Kick off install Answer 1 question Enjoy W11 Edited November 3, 2023 by fygjam 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yesitisdakid Posted November 3, 2023 Share Posted November 3, 2023 This everything was fine machine ran 15 minutes and then crashed it would boot up again no problem run 15 minutes and then crash. I wiped it and reinstalled windows 10 Pro 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo Posted November 3, 2023 Share Posted November 3, 2023 (edited) I hate change! If one is happy with Windows 10, assuming it is doing everything one wishes it to do, why move to Windows 11? The laptop I am currently using came with Windows 10. I absolutely hated it and followed a tutorial which made Windows 10 in appearance look like Windows 8. At least I think it was 8 so I was happy once again. 🤣 Edited November 3, 2023 by Jambo 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forcebwithu Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 6 hours ago, Jambo said: I hate change! If one is happy with Windows 10, assuming it is doing everything one wishes it to do, why move to Windows 11? The laptop I am currently using came with Windows 10. I absolutely hated it and followed a tutorial which made Windows 10 in appearance look like Windows 8. At least I think it was 8 so I was happy once again. 🤣 As I've posted elsewhere, I regret installing Win 11 on my new laptop. Win 10 was much more stable than 11 handling all the external devices I have connected. At some point I intend on wiping my laptop and going back to Win 10. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freee!! Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 1 minute ago, forcebwithu said: As I've posted elsewhere, I regret installing Win 11 on my new laptop. Win 10 was much more stable than 11 handling all the external devices I have connected. At some point I intend on wiping my laptop and going back to Win 10. As far as I am concerned, I am going to keep Microsoft to its promise that Windows 10 is the last version. If/when it goes out of support, I'll switch to Linux. I am already running a second laptop on Linux Mint and as things look now, I'll probably switch to Linux Mint Debian Edition. There are a couple of games I like to play which don't work properly under Linux, but for those I can run a VM without internet access. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fygjam Posted November 4, 2023 Author Share Posted November 4, 2023 1 hour ago, forcebwithu said: As I've posted elsewhere, I regret installing Win 11 on my new laptop. Win 10 was much more stable than 11 handling all the external devices I have connected. At some point I intend on wiping my laptop and going back to Win 10. A problem that may occur. Once a version of Windows becomes the "official" version hardware manufactures stop making or upgrading the drivers for the previous versions. I had problems back in the XP/W7 days. An HP laptop which was sold with W7 but I was trying to install XP. Just couldn't get it to run with any stability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forcebwithu Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 15 minutes ago, fygjam said: A problem that may occur. Once a version of Windows becomes the "official" version hardware manufactures stop making or upgrading the drivers for the previous versions. I had problems back in the XP/W7 days. An HP laptop which was sold with W7 but I was trying to install XP. Just couldn't get it to run with any stability. My current setup was humming along nicely on Win 10 for about three years, which is when I typically upgrade to a new laptop. So last May I did just that and went with Win 11 on the new laptop. As I run everything through a Startech docking station, the only thing that changed was the laptop and OS version. And that's when the headaches began. I thought it might have been a bad install of the OS, so within the first month I wiped the drive and did a fresh install. The headaches continued, which I believe are related to power saving features cooked into 11. That causes my external drives to power down if not used, and when I do open an application, or even File Explorer that has quick access links to folders on those drives it can take upwards of half a minute of waiting for the app to respond. A right PITA for someone like me with ADHD. There is a Device Manager setting under Power Management for the various USB drives that if unchecked won't allow the computer to turn off the device. But from what I've seen it has no effect. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forcebwithu Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 I finally had enough of Windows 11 and bought a new laptop which I've downgraded to Windows 10. Moving my apps over to the new laptop has gone smoothly and I'm quite pleased how fast everything is running, and how fast reboots are compared to Win 11. Hopefully Microsoft does better on their next OS version. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightcrawler Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 I have been resisting Windows 11 upgrade ever since the option popped up and will continue to do so Windows 10 works perfectly fine for me on my lippy. Thanks for the above info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KWA Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 I got a new laptop when I was back in the UK and it came with Windows 11. I tweaked a few settings to make it look more familiar but (fingers crossed) it seems to be running fine. And exceptionally fast to boot compared to my old system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boydeste Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 I look after my mates PC for him and he keeps mentioning he can upgrade to 11. My last words to him were that if he upgraded whilst I am away, he can find someone else to fix his problems. Lol 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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