The Windows 11 is already available to users as an insider preview and soon it will be released on a stable channel. As now the Windows 11 is officially announced, it is easy to find a Windows 11 ISO that we can use to install Windows 11 on any PC. But, when Windows 11 was officially announced, the system requirements that were needed to run Windows 11 caused a lot of commotion since a huge number of systems were going to be left out. However, you can follow this guide to know how to install Windows 11 on supported devices.
Many people have been unhappy about the new system requirements for Windows 11. After all, if a system is running quite fine without issues, why would anyone want to purchase a new system just to use Windows 11? What about entry-level CPUs that work quite fine for normal day-to-day casual usage? Well, thankfully, there are a few ways to bypass Windows 11 requirements and install Windows 11 on unsupported systems.
Install Windows 11 on Unsupported Devices
Many developers and enthusiasts have already tried Windows 11 on different devices and shared their results on different platforms. And from their reviews, we came to find that it is possible to get Windows 11 on Unsupported PCs. Microsoft is even providing Windows 11 Insider Preview for Intel i7 & AMD Ryzen 2nd gen for testing. Yes, they are considering extending at least CPU requirements if the testing goes fine.
But what if your PC is running on an old CPU, TPM missing, or failing other requirements? Well, luckily there are few methods to bypass Windows 11 requirements and Install Windows 11 OS on any PC. We have seen some crazy experiments including Windows 11 running on OnePlus 6T & Lumia phones. So let’s now start with the first method to get Windows 11 on unsupported devices. We recommend first you check all four methods and then try out the one that is easy in your case.
1. Join Windows Insider Dev Channel
Apply for the Release Preview
Now, those who were already enrolled in Windows Insider have gotten the update to Windows 11 provided their system has the requirements or not. Now, if you are a few of those who missed it, there is relief and you will be able to get the update to Windows 11 via the Windows Update for your unsupported system. For this method to work you will first have to enroll yourself in the Windows insider program and have to join the release preview channel. Here is how you join the release preview channel.
- Open Settings app and select Update and Security.
- From the sidebar menu select Windows Insider Program. and click on the get started button.
- You will have to sign in with your Microsoft account. If you donโt have one, it is best to create one now.
- Now, select the Release Preview Channel and click on Confirm.
- You will now be asked to confirm if you really want to join the Windows Insider Program click on Confirm.
- Go ahead and restart your PC to let the changes take place.
Make changes to the registry files
Now that youโve enrolled in the release preview channel, the next step is to make a few changes to the registry files so that the insider channel gets forcefully changed to the Dev channel which will help you to get the insider preview to Windows 11.
- In the start menu type in regedit to open the Registry Editor.
- Towards the left sidebar locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsSelfHost\Applicability folder.
- On the right side, you will see a few values that you will have to change to move from the release preview channel to the dev channel.
- On BranchName double click it and change the value to Dev. Do the same for ContentType but set value to Mainline and, on Ring set the value to External.
- Now that you have made changes to the values, now simply head back to the Windows Insider Program and take a look at what channel you are now part of.
- It should show that you are an insider for the Dev channel which will now grant you an insider preview of the update to Windows 11 on your supported system.
2. Join Dev Channel with Script
You can use a script to join the Dev channel if for whatever reason the above method didnโt work for you. There could be many reasons as to why the change didnโt take place to the Dev channel.
- Download the OfflineInsiderEnroll script from the GitHub page.
- When the download complete, right-click the script and run it as an administrator.
- It will now open up the command prompt.
- Simply type in the number 1 and press enter. The script will now do its work and will automatically complete the work.
- You can simply press any key to then close the command prompt.
- Now, you can head over to the Windows Insider Program and see your system has been enrolled into the Dev channel.
Enrolling in the Dev channel will help you to get the insider preview update to Windows 11 on your supported system.
3. Install Windows 11 with a hybrid installer
In this method, you will be able to install or upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported devices right away without having to dig for the update in the Windows Update finder. This method also helps to get rid of the new setup screens that will check if your system passes all the requirements. To perform these methods, you will need Windows 10 ISO as well as Windows 11 ISO. With regards to the Windows 10 ISO, you will be able to find it on the Microsoft website itself. As for Windows 11, you might have to run around on the internet on places like Twitter or Reddit. Even a proper Google search should do just fine.
- Once you have both ISO files downloaded, mount them. Simply right-click the ISO file and select Mount.
- From the Windows 10 ISO, navigate to sources and locate a file named install.wim or install.esd.
- Move the install.wim or install.esd file to the desktop.
- Open the sources folder that is in the Windows 11 ISO and look for the same install.wim or install.esd.
- Copy the install.wim or install.esd files to the Windows 10 sources folder.
- If for whatever reason the Windows 10 ISO had install.esd and the Windows 11 ISO has install.wim, you will have to convert the Windows 11 install.wim to install.esd.
- Copy the install.wim file from the Windows 11 ISO to a folder on the desktop.
- Run Command Prompt as administrator.
- In the command prompt type in dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:C:\FilePath\To\install.wim. Here FilePath refers to where the Windows11.wim has been copied to.
- Running the command will give you a list of Windows 11 editions that are available for you to select.
- Now run the following command dism /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:(Insert your file path)\install.wim /SourceIndex: /DestinationImageFile(Insert your file path)\install.esd /Compress:recovery /CheckIntegrity
- What this command does is it takes your Windows 11 install.wim file and converts it into an install.esd file which you can then use to copy into the Windows 10 ISO folder.
- The conversion process will take some time and use a lot of your CPU resources.
- With the conversion now complete, simply copy the install.esd file to the Windows 10 ISO sources folder.
- Now that you have created a custom installer, you have two ways to install Windows 11. One way is to directly upgrade to install it and the other way is by creating a bootable USB drive with the help of Rufus.
Method A: Direct Upgrade to Windows 11 on Unsupported device
With all the files that you have either converted or copied, you can now open the Windows 10 ISO and simply run the setup.exe application. This will now begin the regular Windows 11 installation. You will have to simply follow the onscreen instructions and Windows will do everything for you. The installation will take some time, but you will up and running Windows 11 on unsupported device right away.
Method B: Clean Install Windows 11 on Unsupported device
With the new Windows 10 ISO that you have copied new files to, simply create a bootable USB drive. To know how to create one, check out this guide on creating a Windows 11 USB bootable drive. If you see a new setup screen than Windows 10, then everything is all fine and you will now be able to enjoy Windows 11 on an unsupported system. However, if you run into an error during the installation, simply reboot back to Windows setup.
- Open CMD using Shift+F10 when you see the first setup screen.
- Type regedit to open up the Registry Editor. You will have to change a few values here to skip the out-of-the-box experience that checks for your system requirements.
- With the registry editor now open, navigate over to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE from the left bar.
- Select File from the menu bar and click on Load Hive.
- In the file picker window, navigate around to C:\Windows\System32\config.
- Double click on system and enter SYSTEM1 for the key name and hit OK.
- Repeat the same process for Software and enter key-value SOFTWARE1.
- In the Registry Editor, navigate over to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM1\Setup
- Once there ensure that Data for CmdLine is empty.
- Now make sure that the following have been set to 0: OOBEInProgress, RestartSetiup, SetupPhase, SetupType, and SystemSetupInProgress. The values have to all be set to 0.
- Head back into the registry editor screen and navigate over to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE1\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE.
- Here you will have to right-click, select New, and then DWORD, name it as SkipMachineOOBE and set the data value as 1. Create another DWORD, name it SkipUserOOBE, and set the data value for this as 1.
Because now you have disabled the out-of-the-box experience, you will now have to manually create an account beforehand itself so that Windows 11 after installation, follow the steps to create a user account manually.
- On command window enter copy C:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe C:\ (C:\ refer to the Windows drive).
- After that, enter copy /y C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe C:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe
- Now, reboot into Windows, and in the command prompt type in wpeutil reboot.
- This command will now reboot your system. On the login screen, you will now see an account named Other User.
- At the bottom right, click on Accessibility which brings up a command prompt.
- Type in net user /add USERNAME PASSWORD in the command prompt. Here you can set a desired username and password.
- Next type in net localgroup administrators USERNAME /add replace USERNAME with the name you have entered previously.
- To make this new account visible, reboot your system but make sure it boots up from your USB drive.
- Now, open up the command prompt by pressing the Shift and F10 keys.
- Type in copy /y C:\Utilman.exe C:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe and reboot your system.
- You can now set things up and finally use Windows 11 on an unsupported device.
4. Replace the Compatibility check file to install Windows 11 on unsupported devices
This method is one of the easier ones out there. However, you will need Windows 10 ISO as well as a Windows 11 ISO file.
- Open file explorer and locate the Windows 10 ISO. Right click on the ISO and click on Mount option to mount the Windows 10 ISO file.
- Look for the sources folder, open it and copy the appraiserres.dll file in a folder on the desktop.
- With the Windows 11 ISO create a bootable USB drive with the help of Rufus (Guide).
- Open the sources folder in the Windows 11 ISO and look forย appraiserres.dll. And rename with the suffix 1 (eg. appraiserres1.dll).
- Now, copy the appraiserres.dll file from the folder that you earlier copied from the Windows 10 ISO and paste it in the sources folder of the Windows 11 ISO.
- From the Windows 11 bootable drive, simply run the setup.exe and begin the installation of Windows 11.
- Also, while setting up, ensure that you have disabled the check for updates option and continue around with the setup of Windows 11 on an unsupported system.
Now, these methods may or may not work for the upcoming preview releases of Windows 11. Also, one cannot be sure if could actually be possible to install the official Windows 11 update on unsupported systems. Microsoft now seems to make updating to new Operating Systems a tad bit difficult with the high-level system requirements.
We hope to see Microsoft revise the list of supported CPUs so that a whole lot more systems will then be able to enjoy the new update. We hope this guide helps you to install Windows 11 on unsupported devices so that you can also experience all the new stuff from Windows 11.
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