How to Install Windows 11 On Unsupported Hardware
# Guide to Installing Windows 11 on Unsupported Hardware: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
## Introduction
If you're considering upgrading your old computer to Windows 11 but find that your device isn't listed in Microsoft's compatibility list, don't worry—it's still possible to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware. While Microsoft officially supports only certain devices, there are methods available to bypass these restrictions. This guide will walk you through the process, providing detailed instructions and important considerations.
## Prerequisites Before Installation
Before diving into the installation process, it's crucial to evaluate your current setup:
1. **Check Windows 10 Update Status**: Ensure your Windows 10 system is fully updated. Go to the Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and install all available updates. This step helps prevent issues during the upgrade.
2. **Consider Your Primary Computer**: If this is your only device with personal data, proceed with caution. Microsoft supports Windows 10 until October 14, 2025, and upgrading an unsupported CPU may risk future updates or functionality. However, if you have a backup system, feel free to experiment.
## Downloading the Windows 11 ISO File
To begin, download the Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft's official website:
1. Visit [Microsoft’s Download Windows 11 page](https://www.microsoft.com/windows/).
2. Scroll down and click on "Download Windows 11 disk image (ISO)".
3. Select your preferred language, review the terms, and download the ISO.
## Bypassing TPM Requirements via Registry Edit
Windows 11 requires a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 or 1.2 for secure boot. If your device lacks these, follow these steps to bypass the check using the Windows Registry:
1. **Open Registry Editor**: Press `Win + R`, type `regedit`, and press Enter.
2. **Navigate to Specific Key**:
- Go to `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > Setup`.
3. **Create New Keys**:
- Right-click on `Setup` and create a new key named `Microsoft`.
- Within `Microsoft`, create another key named `Windows`.
4. **Set Registry Value**:
- In the `Windows` folder, right-click and select `New DWORD (32-bit) Value`.
- Name it `AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPM`.
- Double-click this value and set it to `1`.
## Proceeding with Installation
After modifying the registry, follow these steps:
1. **Mount the ISO File**: Use software like Rufus or PowerISO to create a bootable USB drive from the ISO.
2. **Backup Your Data**: While Windows backup might handle data during the upgrade, it's wise to manually back up using tools like Macrium Reflect or built-in Windows Backup.
3. **Install Windows 11**:
- Restart your computer and boot from the USB drive.
- Follow on-screen instructions to install Windows 11.
## Post-Installation Considerations
- **Rollback Option**: If you encounter issues, you can revert to Windows 10 within 10 days post-installation. Access this via Settings > System > Recovery. Extend the period using Command Prompt by running `reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer /v ExcludeFromLogoffMenu oldValue 0x00000000 newValue 0x00000001`.
- **Updates and Support**: Be aware that unsupported devices may face update issues. Monitor Microsoft’s policies for updates.
## Conclusion
While installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware is feasible, it requires careful consideration of your system's role and data security. Proceed with caution, especially if using your primary device. Always back up data and stay informed about Microsoft's support policies.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat you guys got another video here for you on how to install windows 11 on unsupported hardware now if you have an old computer that is not on the compatibility list to install windows 11 on then you can still install windows 11 on that system it's no secret it's been out for quite a while microsoft know that everyone knows about how to install uh windows 11 on unsupported hardware they've even written about it on their own article which i'll show you in a second but first off let's go through some of the things that you need to do and some of the things you need to understand before we go ahead and do an upgrade to windows 11 so the first thing that you want to do is you want to make sure that you are fully updated on your windows 10 system so you want to make sure that you go to the update section and check for updates and get all of the latest updates for that computer this can make sure that we don't have any issues uh with update issues maybe some sort of problem during the upgrade process so you'll see there's quite a few here so we're going to let these go through and let these upgrade and then hopefully we can move on to the next stage while they're updating i'll talk about two things that i think are important the first thing that i want to talk about is whether your pc is your main computer if this is your only computer that you have and it has windows 10 on it it is supported until october 14th 2025. you have no need to upgrade to windows 11 you can use windows 10 up until october 14th 2025 and you will still receive updates just like we're receiving here the second thing that if it's your only pc and it's all your data is on there then it's probably not advisable to force an upgrade to windows 11 on an unsupported cpu the reason for this is we don't know what decisions microsoft are going to do in the foreseeable future they could stop updates to that system they could do all sorts of things and it might not be suitable to use your only pc which is all your missing critical data on there on windows 11. now on the other hand if you have an older system lying around which isn't your main system and you want to use windows 11 and give it a try and you don't care about anything on there then by all means go ahead and install it on that system and use it and see how you like it these are the two things that i would make sure that you understand before you go ahead and install windows 11. the next thing you need to do is head over to microsoft's website and you need to then download the iso file for windows 11 so what we're going to do is we're going to head down to the bottom of this page here where you can see download windows 11 disk image iso so you need to select windows 11 here and you can then hit the download button this will then download the iso for us so go ahead and select the language and confirm and we can let this then go ahead and download the iso here so there we go we've got it coming down it's quite a large iso it's what 5.1 gigabytes in size shouldn't take too long to come down if you have a fast internet connection okay so let's take a look at ways to install windows 11 now this is an article on microsoft's own website as you can see here if you read this article it will instruct you about how to install windows 11 it talks about before you begin here it'll give you some information about checking the minimum system requirements you can click on this link and it will take you there and you can check those system requirements to make sure it meets them it says also that you need to run the pc health check app and you can click here and download it and basically run that on your computer and it will tell you whether your pc is eligible to have windows 11 installed on it moving on down to this area here we can see the windows update area which is they're recommending that you update your operating system which is making sense and then it comes down to this area here which it also says other ways to install windows 11 not recommended unless instructed by support so this is obviously uh projected towards companies and businesses that need to update to windows 11 and you can see here it says here microsoft recommends against installing windows 11 on a device that does not meet the windows 11 minimum system requirements if you choose to install windows 11 on a device that does not meet the minimum requirements and you'll acknowledge and understand the risks you can create the following registry values to bypass the check for tpm 2.0 and at least tpm 1.2 is required to install windows 11 on that system and that's basically it they're giving you the registry key right here on their own website to tell you how to bypass this checking process that is going on so does that mean that you're okay to use it well there's always a risk microsoft can change their mind like the weather and basically stop updates for all unsupported uh computers which means you will not receive any security updates now as a company they'll probably not using the windows update feature in the way that you use it at home they're probably doing updates in another way and that means that they can probably still bypass that method of getting updates so it wouldn't affect companies but home users it certainly would unless you go through the manual update process route which can be a bit of a hassle if you look here it does tell you about installing windows 11 on devices that don't meet the minimum system requirements you can see it basically breaks it all down and tells you uh in here i've covered this before in a video so i'm not going to go too deeply in it i will leave the link in the video description so you can take time to read all this information at your own leisure okay so let's now go ahead and install our registry key which is our work around so what we need to do here is go to the registry i'm going to type reg edit in the search box here and basically we're going to click on here and open up the registry editor so now we've got the registry editor open we need to navigate to the area which they've told us to go to so what we're going to do here is go to where it says computer here h key local machine open this up here i'm going to go down to where it says system open this up go to setup so find setup there we go if we don't see the directory here or folder what we can do is right click on here and create a new key inside here we're going to be creating capital m o and then set up like so and once you've got this done we can head over to this side here right click here new d word 32-bit value so we need to paste in here allow upgrades with unsupported tpm or cpu once you've done this we can double click on this and we can give this a value of one click ok and we are now set to install windows 11 on this machine now before rolling out any sort of major upgrade to a new operating system it's always advisable to make a backup of your data yes microsoft saves your data during the upgrade process to a new operating system but i would never rely on microsoft to backup your data it's your responsibility to backup your own data so you can use something like macrame reflect to use to back up your data or you can use the built-in windows backup tool to backup your data whatever way you want to backup your data use that method never rely on microsoft to save your data and while you upgrading to a new operating system once you're happy with this we've already got the download of our iso image we can go to our download section here there is our iso that we just downloaded we can right click on this and we can mount this on our system it's now mounted to our computer all we need to do here is click on the setup we need to do then is follow the on-screen display and upgrade windows 11 on that system it's a pretty straightforward process just follow the prompts on the screen when you're going through the upgrade process and the pc will start to upgrade to windows 11. it works because you wouldn't see that install windows 11 prompt box on the screen now you should have something looking like this if you've installed windows 11 and we still don't know what microsoft stance is on unsupported hardware whether they are going to enforce uh no windows updates for windows 11 on unsupported hardware we don't know whether they're going to do that and we just have to wait and see now if you've got windows 11 and you don't like it and you do want to roll back there is an option to roll back you have 10 days to roll back to windows 10 you can go to the start button here you can go to settings and then you can go to system and then down here there will be a recovery section mine is grayed out and that's because the time has run out you can extend this to 30 days using a command prompt uh code and you can push it in there and get 30 days but by default it is 10 days only so you'll have 10 days to roll back after that it will gray out like this and you won't be able to roll back to windows 10 you will have to do a fresh install of windows 10 if you want to go back to it just bear that in mind anyway i think that is going to be about it for this video hope this video has been some sort of use to you let me know in the comment section below what you're going to be doing with your old systems and i'll be happy to read those comments my name has been brian from biotech computers dot co dot uk just want to say a big shout out to all my youtube members who show their support by joining my members group i really do appreciate the support your names are rolling up on the screen right now and i shall see you again for another video real soon thanks again for watching bye for now youwhat you guys got another video here for you on how to install windows 11 on unsupported hardware now if you have an old computer that is not on the compatibility list to install windows 11 on then you can still install windows 11 on that system it's no secret it's been out for quite a while microsoft know that everyone knows about how to install uh windows 11 on unsupported hardware they've even written about it on their own article which i'll show you in a second but first off let's go through some of the things that you need to do and some of the things you need to understand before we go ahead and do an upgrade to windows 11 so the first thing that you want to do is you want to make sure that you are fully updated on your windows 10 system so you want to make sure that you go to the update section and check for updates and get all of the latest updates for that computer this can make sure that we don't have any issues uh with update issues maybe some sort of problem during the upgrade process so you'll see there's quite a few here so we're going to let these go through and let these upgrade and then hopefully we can move on to the next stage while they're updating i'll talk about two things that i think are important the first thing that i want to talk about is whether your pc is your main computer if this is your only computer that you have and it has windows 10 on it it is supported until october 14th 2025. you have no need to upgrade to windows 11 you can use windows 10 up until october 14th 2025 and you will still receive updates just like we're receiving here the second thing that if it's your only pc and it's all your data is on there then it's probably not advisable to force an upgrade to windows 11 on an unsupported cpu the reason for this is we don't know what decisions microsoft are going to do in the foreseeable future they could stop updates to that system they could do all sorts of things and it might not be suitable to use your only pc which is all your missing critical data on there on windows 11. now on the other hand if you have an older system lying around which isn't your main system and you want to use windows 11 and give it a try and you don't care about anything on there then by all means go ahead and install it on that system and use it and see how you like it these are the two things that i would make sure that you understand before you go ahead and install windows 11. the next thing you need to do is head over to microsoft's website and you need to then download the iso file for windows 11 so what we're going to do is we're going to head down to the bottom of this page here where you can see download windows 11 disk image iso so you need to select windows 11 here and you can then hit the download button this will then download the iso for us so go ahead and select the language and confirm and we can let this then go ahead and download the iso here so there we go we've got it coming down it's quite a large iso it's what 5.1 gigabytes in size shouldn't take too long to come down if you have a fast internet connection okay so let's take a look at ways to install windows 11 now this is an article on microsoft's own website as you can see here if you read this article it will instruct you about how to install windows 11 it talks about before you begin here it'll give you some information about checking the minimum system requirements you can click on this link and it will take you there and you can check those system requirements to make sure it meets them it says also that you need to run the pc health check app and you can click here and download it and basically run that on your computer and it will tell you whether your pc is eligible to have windows 11 installed on it moving on down to this area here we can see the windows update area which is they're recommending that you update your operating system which is making sense and then it comes down to this area here which it also says other ways to install windows 11 not recommended unless instructed by support so this is obviously uh projected towards companies and businesses that need to update to windows 11 and you can see here it says here microsoft recommends against installing windows 11 on a device that does not meet the windows 11 minimum system requirements if you choose to install windows 11 on a device that does not meet the minimum requirements and you'll acknowledge and understand the risks you can create the following registry values to bypass the check for tpm 2.0 and at least tpm 1.2 is required to install windows 11 on that system and that's basically it they're giving you the registry key right here on their own website to tell you how to bypass this checking process that is going on so does that mean that you're okay to use it well there's always a risk microsoft can change their mind like the weather and basically stop updates for all unsupported uh computers which means you will not receive any security updates now as a company they'll probably not using the windows update feature in the way that you use it at home they're probably doing updates in another way and that means that they can probably still bypass that method of getting updates so it wouldn't affect companies but home users it certainly would unless you go through the manual update process route which can be a bit of a hassle if you look here it does tell you about installing windows 11 on devices that don't meet the minimum system requirements you can see it basically breaks it all down and tells you uh in here i've covered this before in a video so i'm not going to go too deeply in it i will leave the link in the video description so you can take time to read all this information at your own leisure okay so let's now go ahead and install our registry key which is our work around so what we need to do here is go to the registry i'm going to type reg edit in the search box here and basically we're going to click on here and open up the registry editor so now we've got the registry editor open we need to navigate to the area which they've told us to go to so what we're going to do here is go to where it says computer here h key local machine open this up here i'm going to go down to where it says system open this up go to setup so find setup there we go if we don't see the directory here or folder what we can do is right click on here and create a new key inside here we're going to be creating capital m o and then set up like so and once you've got this done we can head over to this side here right click here new d word 32-bit value so we need to paste in here allow upgrades with unsupported tpm or cpu once you've done this we can double click on this and we can give this a value of one click ok and we are now set to install windows 11 on this machine now before rolling out any sort of major upgrade to a new operating system it's always advisable to make a backup of your data yes microsoft saves your data during the upgrade process to a new operating system but i would never rely on microsoft to backup your data it's your responsibility to backup your own data so you can use something like macrame reflect to use to back up your data or you can use the built-in windows backup tool to backup your data whatever way you want to backup your data use that method never rely on microsoft to save your data and while you upgrading to a new operating system once you're happy with this we've already got the download of our iso image we can go to our download section here there is our iso that we just downloaded we can right click on this and we can mount this on our system it's now mounted to our computer all we need to do here is click on the setup we need to do then is follow the on-screen display and upgrade windows 11 on that system it's a pretty straightforward process just follow the prompts on the screen when you're going through the upgrade process and the pc will start to upgrade to windows 11. it works because you wouldn't see that install windows 11 prompt box on the screen now you should have something looking like this if you've installed windows 11 and we still don't know what microsoft stance is on unsupported hardware whether they are going to enforce uh no windows updates for windows 11 on unsupported hardware we don't know whether they're going to do that and we just have to wait and see now if you've got windows 11 and you don't like it and you do want to roll back there is an option to roll back you have 10 days to roll back to windows 10 you can go to the start button here you can go to settings and then you can go to system and then down here there will be a recovery section mine is grayed out and that's because the time has run out you can extend this to 30 days using a command prompt uh code and you can push it in there and get 30 days but by default it is 10 days only so you'll have 10 days to roll back after that it will gray out like this and you won't be able to roll back to windows 10 you will have to do a fresh install of windows 10 if you want to go back to it just bear that in mind anyway i think that is going to be about it for this video hope this video has been some sort of use to you let me know in the comment section below what you're going to be doing with your old systems and i'll be happy to read those comments my name has been brian from biotech computers dot co dot uk just want to say a big shout out to all my youtube members who show their support by joining my members group i really do appreciate the support your names are rolling up on the screen right now and i shall see you again for another video real soon thanks again for watching bye for now you\n"