Question What's the latest skinny about the hack for Win 11 on pre-Coffee Lake processors?

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm still running Sky-/Kaby-Lake Z170 systems. These are probably the best machines I've ever built in terms of their speed, reliability and longevity. But the hardware is more than six years old. One of them may have been built a year ago from "new" parts, but the key parts -- CPU, chipset and motherboard -- were released before 2017.

The hacks published to address Windows 11 upgrades got some of my attention, but not enough to keep up with it. I don't know how it turned out for people who did it.

I'm looking at some outlays for hardware over the next several months, at a time when (a) I'm trying to save money for a new car, (b) I need to replace my old server with a new NAS, (c) I'm not so sure I want to build a new system, despite being a veteran at it, and (d) I'm looking at some high-end (<= $2,000) gaming desktops to support my ambivalence in (c).

So how has it turned out with the hack for Win 11 on the older hardware?

 

[tcsenter]

Use Rufus or other tool to bypass/remove hardware requirement check from Windows 11 ISO setup.

Some people have reported Windows Setup actually offered the option 'I understand the risks, want to proceed anyway' after alerting Windows 11 did not support their hardware configuration, without having to mod any install bits or registry at all. It was kind of hidden at the bottom of the dialogue screen, had to scroll in order to see it.

 

[mikeymikec]

My experience with running Win11 RTM on older hardware (old CPU and TPM, UEFI enabled) was that it worked fine, but I only received security updates and no feature update offer to 22H2.

AFAIK there is no 'Windows 11 Update Assistant" to manually trigger the feature update, and while in theory I could have manually installed 22H2 as an in-place OS upgrade, my interest was in finding out whether Windows Update would operate normally or not.

 

[igor_kavinski]

AFAIK there is no 'Windows 11 Update Assistant" to manually trigger the feature update

In Windows 10, the media creation tool would install the latest feature update. Haven't tried it on Windows 11.

 

[tcsenter]

AFAIK there is no 'Windows 11 Update Assistant" to manually trigger the feature update, and while in theory I could have manually installed 22H2 as an in-place OS upgrade, my interest was in finding out whether Windows Update would operate normally or not.

We have an Acer laptop with 10th Gen Intel mobile part that came with Windows 10 21H1 but never offered 22H2 as of two months ago, when I manually invoked the upgrade (setup.exe) via a USB drive created from 22H2 ISO, even though Microsoft was reportedly pushing to get systems updated to 22Hx. Weird.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Weird.

Could be that few owners of your laptop model were upgraded and then some issue(s) were reported, preventing them from pushing the update to the remaining users.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It seems that I and my local 75-year-old friends have been revisiting this question since at least a year ago -- maybe longer. We've probably all set a tentative "hardware upgrade" deadline to any anticipated date for discontinuing support for Windows 10. But since there is an extended update/service plan for corporate and military IT departments, I would bet that you could defer your own hardware replacement when Win 10 begins to show deficiencies or MS stops supporting something within Windows. It could almost be forever.

The other possibility for the cautious might involve the creation of a Win 10 boot-disk clone for a PC you can deem to be "experimental", so that we could follow the trail-blazers who have posted here and install Win 11 on the experimental system -- fingers crossed.

Personally, given recent telephone conversations with people I know and exchanges in this and other related forums or threads, I believe I have mapped out a path for myself.

As much as I was thinking of buying an OEM system with Win 11 sometime this year, I may invest this year's money for parts of a new build. I will then have to cancel the least of my tip-top desktop systems so I can harvest the computer case for final installation of tested hardware with the Win 11 install.

And I could still buy an OEM "SFF" system next year. I'm telling my friends that there's no hurry, in any event

Veteran members and system builders might offer their own observations about this phenomenon I describe as follows. Mainstreamers poo-poo and denigrate enthusiasts who use regular-sized midtower cases. As though one is some sort of loser for not inclining to build an SFF box. I suppose the hardware is out there to do it: an SFF case, mATX or ITX motherboard and other items that would leave you with a low-profile SFF system.

And those are just my hardware issues, prospects, plans and hurdles. What I've seen so far from my laptop Win 11 upgrade is another learning curve and an OS design or interface that fails to give me an organism.

 

[DaaQ]

It seems that I and my local 75-year-old friends have been revisiting this question since at least a year ago -- maybe longer. We've probably all set a tentative "hardware upgrade" deadline to any anticipated date for discontinuing support for Windows 10. But since there is an extended update/service plan for corporate and military IT departments, I would bet that you could defer your own hardware replacement when Win 10 begins to show deficiencies or MS stops supporting something within Windows. It could almost be forever.

The other possibility for the cautious might involve the creation of a Win 10 boot-disk clone for a PC you can deem to be "experimental", so that we could follow the trail-blazers who have posted here and install Win 11 on the experimental system -- fingers crossed.

Personally, given recent telephone conversations with people I know and exchanges in this and other related forums or threads, I believe I have mapped out a path for myself.

As much as I was thinking of buying an OEM system with Win 11 sometime this year, I may invest this year's money for parts of a new build. I will then have to cancel the least of my tip-top desktop systems so I can harvest the computer case for final installation of tested hardware with the Win 11 install.

And I could still buy an OEM "SFF" system next year. I'm telling my friends that there's no hurry, in any event

Veteran members and system builders might offer their own observations about this phenomenon I describe as follows. Mainstreamers poo-poo and denigrate enthusiasts who use regular-sized midtower cases. As though one is some sort of loser for not inclining to build an SFF box. I suppose the hardware is out there to do it: an SFF case, mATX or ITX motherboard and other items that would leave you with a low-profile SFF system.

And those are just my hardware issues, prospects, plans and hurdles. What I've seen so far from my laptop Win 11 upgrade is another learning curve and an OS design or interface that fails to give me an organism.

I my self need to find this info out as well, I am going to finish my "OLD" new build very soon.
I have my 64GB ssd with W10 on it. Maybe that will work, then Raid 0 my 4 128GB ssds and see if it will let me upgrade. IDK.
Would like if one would post the guide to the registry hack to bypass the TPM requirement. as I am not sure my MOBO is UEFI. It's been a LONG time.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I am of the opinion that Microsoft at some point will be forced to offer Windows 11 to all the PC owners who refuse to upgrade to newer hardware. So personally, I would not upgrade to 11 unless I absolutely have to. I use it daily at work. Some of the changes are very annoying. Like before, I could just open a text file and press CTRL+P then Enter to print. If I do that in 11, it opens up the list of printers. I kid you not! Which idiot's bright idea was that, I wonder? Must be some genius they hired fresh out of college. I have to now POINT the mouse pointer over the Print button and left click the mouse button. And my work requires me to do that dozens of times daily. So they slowed me down at least 2x, if not 3x.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Would like if one would post the guide to the registry hack to bypass the TPM requirement. as I am not sure my MOBO is UEFI. It's been a LONG time.

No need.

GitHub - coofcookie/Windows11Upgrade: Windows 11 Upgrade tool that bypasses Microsoft´s requirements

Windows 11 Upgrade tool that bypasses Microsoft´s requirements - GitHub - coofcookie/Windows11Upgrade: Windows 11 Upgrade tool that bypasses Microsoft´s requirements

github.com

You are welcome

 

[tcsenter]

Would like if one would post the guide to the registry hack to bypass the TPM requirement. as I am not sure my MOBO is UEFI. It's been a LONG time.

Not sure if this one has been blocked by 22H2 build of Windows 11 but it used to work. When I tried iit last year, I disconnected from network/internet during installation so that Setup could not download updated files:

- Open REGEDIT and navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup
- Right-click on folder MoSetup and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value
- In right pane, name the new DWORD value AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU and set the value to 1.
- Restart computer, then run Setup from Windows 11 install bits
- When you reach it, select Upgrade instead of Clean Install

 

[DaaQ]

Use Rufus or other tool to bypass/remove hardware requirement check from Windows 11 ISO setup.

Some people have reported Windows Setup actually offered the option 'I understand the risks, want to proceed anyway' after alerting Windows 11 did not support their hardware configuration, without having to mod any install bits or registry at all. It was kind of hidden at the bottom of the dialogue screen, had to scroll in order to see it.

I did this method last night with the latest version of RUFUS and the newest win11 iso from MS site. It did install the 2H22 update as well.

Only problem I ran into is I could not get a 4 drive raid0 array to recognize and install the OS there.
So I wiped my 64GB original w10 os drive and put it on that. Installed a new install. No product key. Selected w11 pro. But some things are not working without a product key suck as personalization options.
Will report later if I can get the raid going (they are 4x 128gb ss 830 drives).