PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Want to install Windows 11 on an old computer?

Hi folks,

If you want to try out Windows 11 on an old computer that won't support it, here is a little workaround using an application called Rufus, just installed Windows 11 on a 12 year old PC, running great at the moment.

With this method you have to boot from a 8GB or more USB drive for a clean install, don't think it works to upgrade windows 10.

Windows updates are running fine at the moment but who knows what will happen in future if Microsoft was to turn them off for unsupported hardware.

The method to install is simple and straight forward enough and didn't take me long. Details in link below.

https://makmodo.com/how-to-bypass-windows-11-requirements/

MusicLover, keep us informed on the progress. I guess everything will continue to be OK. Inquiring minds need to know....

Well AudioTrack Its a triple boot system, I do have 2 windows 10 installs on the other partitions (one that I use for Online Banking only)

I had windows 7 where Windows 11 is now, but as I never really booted into 7, just thought I would try windows 11 on there.

As its only a 68gb partition and over 30 is given to windows 11 and a few programs, I don't intend to put many programs on there, but printer and all I have installed so far work well.

Seems it's more like beefed up security on Microsoft's part rather than windows 11 not being able to run on older hardware.

I do like the new start menu and other re-design. Pretty painless to install 11 actually with the helo of Rufus from the link I gave.

This is interesting. I like having the test os on usb.

What I read is that updates would not be supported on such workarounds. Do please keep us posted. EDIT: apparently this is NOT true; see below.

Hey Musiclover, thanks for the post! I indirectly showed this last October here:

Installed Windows 11 on Laptop Successfully!

Go to step 5: "Go to the "Download a Windows 11 ISO That Bypasses TPM" section." One of my PCs was outdated and I had to follow that method to get Win11 on it. The bypass was actually endorsed by Microsoft so maybe they won't get stricter until Win12, LOL.

So between what you shared and what I did, I think anyone here should be able to upgrade to 11 that wants to.

Thanks for the feedback Matt. Luckily, this is not true as Microsoft has approved some of these workarounds as there was quite the uprising of people complaining about not being able to upgrade.

Steve, thank you for the correction!

Matt, I've had 3 machines on Win11 with one bypassing TPM. All 3 have been getting Win Updates without issue. All machines were upgraded from legal Win10 Home or Professional licenses too. The Win11 upgrade detects your Win10 version and gives you that same version.

Great news! Thanks Steve.

I have read somewhere that if Microsoft was to block updates, it would probably be on one of the main Feature Updates that come once a year or so.

I am attempting this now. We shall see...

...Deb

I would think if you upgraded from a legal Windows 10 license, it shouldn't matter how old your computer is, you'll get your updates. My opinion.....

Good luck Deb, if you run into issues, let us know.....

The biggest issue for me is that the Windows 11 installation is destructive. I have zero desire to wipe my computers clean and spend the rest of my life reinstalling things that are so new there is no media. I'd need passwords, links, etc that I don't have. I have things that I use regularly that are no longer available as well as some that I would have to buy a new license for, and I won't do that. And before some suggests dual boot, I am not going to do that. I retired from being a computer techie and don't want to start gathering tools to partition my drives and all the associated yada yada that goes with it. So Windows 11 will just pass me by. 1 have 2 of 6 PCs that can be upgraded, but frankly that whole "no longer supported" thing doesn't really set off terror in my heart. All the talk of "vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit" I just ignore. Here's the logic. If you go to a baseball game you COULD get hit in the head with a foul ball and die. COULD. Not WILL. COULD. Then we get "My banking information is on that computer." Your banking information, or a link TO your banking information? All of that stuff is password protected, is it not? Unless you blatantly have a file on your computer with your password and you name it passwords... wow! I have a file with my passwords. It is named something completely random that gives no indication what it is, AND it is password protected. Feel free to try and guess that file name and password.

So just because Windows reaches end of life doesn't mean your computers are suddenly going to catch fire. Christ you have people here still on XP and that's been dead for 8 years. Has anybody accessed your computer from outside and stolen your recipe file? It COULD happen. It likely won't. As arrogant as I am, I have never be THAT arrogant to think I am important and/or valuable enough that someone would target me for a hack attack. What do they want from me? My album? My recipe for cranberry orange oatmeal cookies? MAYBE my recipe for Potato Skin Pie. (It's AWESOME! Great for your Super Bowl party. I'll share the recipe if you like!) Even Mi¢ro$oft, as arrogant as they are, isn't brazen enough to send a kill routine to computers that wipes the OS out of a computer when that OS goes end of life. Is "no longer updating" really enough of a threat to take on a new science project of wiping, installing, and repopulating your computers? I could. I have 6 here. I just don't want to, so I won't. When I die they will all be formatted anyway. (So nobody gets the pictures of me in a Speedo... Those who don't know what I look like won't get that joke. Picture a Bartlett pear with a rubber band around it.)

Just my opinion and my $.0212 (adjusted to reflect 6% inflation).

Dual Boot is so easy to do, and if it ever goes wrong with the help of a little free application called EasyBCD soon sorts it out.

I will log into Windows 11 often enough but for now I will use windows 10 a lot too.

Its just nice that windows 11 will run ok on pc and will make me familiar with the new OS.

....a little exaggeration there sir! I simply do a screen grab of Add/Remove programs before wipe. On new install I just add the more important items first. I'll add the rest of the programs when I have a need to use them. Sometimes I find I don't need some programs and my PC is cleaner for it. I really haven't had any compatibility issues with software working in Win11 yet. The underlying code isn't that much different than Win10. If it was, there would be a lot more complaints out there. The major issue at Win11 release was the AMD processor issue and that was fixed in a couple of weeks. Nothing hugely noteworthy on bugs since.

I used a different approach. It involves the modification of the original Windows 11 ISO file, putting Windows 10 files (appraiserres.dll).

It works great on a laptop from 2009, and with some optimization, it's still usable for audio.

I can share with you a YT video, in case someone is interested.

I am on hold.

Rufus refuses to see any of my external drives except one that is too small for the image.

...Deb

Deb you need at least a 8gb USB flash for the setup files.

I I take it you want a clean install, no upgrade.
2 Download windows 11 ISO From Microsoft using their Media Creation Tool.
3 Have your USB inserted in pc. Rufus should automatically see it.
4 Point Rufus towards the windows 11 iso where you saved it.
5 There is another option you need to set as well there in Rufus as regards MBR etc.
6 When you think you have all that right click start on Rufus, that will extract the windows 11 files from the ISO and also inject the code for the bypass for unsupported hardware on to the USB flash drive.

With this method I used, its a clean install, you will have to re-install all programs again.

There are other ways to upgrade an existing install of windows 10 I believe (with unsupported hardware)

If you are a little wary of doing the above, windows 10 is perfectly fine.

The link again for a clean install of windows 11.


https://makmodo.com/how-to-bypass-windows-11-requirements/

I found a thumb drive that rufus likes and am working on an image now.

I was trying to use my disc drive toaster and it just didn't like it. Toaster description

There was nothing on the Laptop but the OS.

Thanks all for the help!

...Deb

Nope. No luck. I did everything as instructed and it will not upgrade. I have the boot image made and it starts. Sits for a very LONG time churning then says the computer cannot be upgraded. No other explanation.

Normally, the laptop is very sluggish so there may be something else wrong.

Time to move on.

Thanks all!

...Deb