Installing Windows 11 on Unsupported Hardware

[Retro]

UPDATE 14.12.23

New super easy way to install it in post 3, check it out.

Note that my old 2700K rig mentioned below is no more since the motherboard died very suddenly (literally in an instant) about a month ago with the PC idling on the desktop. There's currently another old mobo and CPU in there (i5-4590) to tide me over until I upgrade to the 14700K. That, of course, will make this W11 installation workaround redundant.

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The fact is that computers 10-15 years old can run Windows 10 just fine and do the basics like browse the web, run Office and play many games and apps with good or acceptable performance. Yet, Microsoft has chosen to shut them out of its latest operating system, Windows 11, allegedly for security reasons.

I'm currently rocking an 11 year old 2700K based PC with 16GB RAM, an RTX 2080 SUPER graphics card, plus that old PC has no hardware issues. It's still really fast on the desktop and can even play most games just fine* with only the latest games, and the especially resource hungry ones, running at a slow framerate. All this, plus I even created NerdZone using it and am currently writing this post with it too, so it's hardly obsolete. It's just Microsoft and the hardware PC industry who want it to be to get more money out of users.

This video guide from the world's nerdiest YouTuber, Christopher Barratt of ExplainingComputers, clearly explains how to jump through the right hoops to install Windows 11 on your old, unsupported PC and save you hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds or dollars in hardware upgrades.

Note that Microsoft might start getting funny with updates or other software or hardware issues pop up over time due to the aged hardware, so go into this with your eyes open.

This guide is so handy, that I've pinned this post for easy access.

*My recent purchase of a G-SYNC compatible monitor has extended that life further by ensuring that even lower framerates play smoothly, so no need for it to meet the refresh rate of a fixed rate high refresh monitor, which it may not be able to do. 60fps really is the minimum required for smooth gameplay, though.

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[Tiffany]

Thanks for sharing! I have windows 11, but not too thrilled with it. It's a bit quirky and the updates concern me at times on how they are going to frick-up my computer since I have alienware which is also quirky by itself.

 

[Retro]

This video shows the easiest way I've seen yet to install W11 on unsupported hardware and it does an upgrade install, too. Just delete the contents of a dll file on the setup .iso and that's it! Superb.

On top of that, it works with the latest 23H2 version. I'll be trying this out on my old rig.

Full details on how to do this, here:

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[Retro]

If your PC is really old, like before 2010, then the next major revision of Windows 11, 24H2, will no longer run on it. Might finally be time to bite the bullet and upgrade the hardware.

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[Geffers]

If your PC is really old, like before 2010, then the next major revision of Windows 11, 24H2, will no longer run on it. Might finally be time to bite the bullet and upgrade the hardware.

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Your old computers will work fine with Linux. Free operating system.

Geffers

 

[Retro]

@Geffers ...and no product activation. It was first released in 2001 with Windows XP and I still hate it with a passion.

The video actually makes a point of suggesting Linux, too.

 

[Geffers]

Folks, with support for Windows 10 finishing and Microsoft's hardware requirements for Windows 11 pretty strict many machines will not be able to upgrade so effectively become obsolete. Fear not, these computers will work perfectly well with the Free Linux Operating System.

You will be able to surf, play videos and write letters, to give you a taster here is a 15 minute video showing a Linux Desktop, what it looks like and showing some of the programs available.

Linux is ideally suited to older machines and drivers are built in to the system so likely everything will work out of the box. There are issues with some nvidea cards but this can be remedied.

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Geffers

 

[Geffers]

Further to my post Sunday 5 May suggesting that older incompatible computers unable to run Windows 11 can run Linux and I attached a short video showing a Linux Desktop, I did fail to mention another bonus of Linux.

The Linux system can read the Windows Filesystem allowing users to browse the Windows files and directories in the same manner as if you were in Windows. Image files, Videos, sound files, PDFs, MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint can all be opened with Linux.

Here is a brief 5 minute video showing how the Windows filesystem is accessed.

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Geffers

 

[Retro]

Following on from the DLL contents deleting method detailed in post 3 for installing 23H2 on unsupported hardware, this great channel, jensd_be, has now released several videos for installing the recently released 24H2 on unsupported hardware under different scenarios. I've linked to all of them here for your convenience.

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[Tiffany]

Lots of great videos to watch in support of upgrading to Windows 11. I like the Linux option too! Thank you both!

 

[Astro What]

Honestly.. the easiest way I've found so far is the Rufus utility I have commented on. No need to jump through hoops, hold your mouth a certain way when installing or extracting a program or anything else.
Download the Windows 11 ISO in the flavor you need. Download the Rufus utility. Run the Rufus utility from your Windows computer. Install a thumb drive (external USB stick). Point to it as the destination drive and then point to the Windows 11 ISO you downloaded. Choose a few options (like bypassing some required checks and creating a specific user and bypassing the MS Hotmail/Live/Outlook setup) and you are good to go.
It is honestly simple enough that it doesn't need a video to explain how to do it... and if you can't figure it out from just looking at the options then installing an operating system may not be your best choice of how to spend your time.

 

[Retro]

I've used the Rufus method and it works well, but it's only for a clean install. To do an upgrade install requires the faffing described in the videos. That's what I did for my test install: I cloned the current W10 installation onto another HDD and then upgraded it to W11 23H2 to test the method and to just see how well it works.

btw, I ran that install yesterday and did Windows Update: it didn't pick up 24H2 like it would with a supported CPU, but picked up 23H2 updates and installed them without issue. This proves that running it on unsupported hardware would continue to be a pita. Best just to upgrade the hardware to avoid this inconvenience and get better performance.

 

[Astro What]

Yah, I don't do upgrades. I do fresh installs always as it is cleaner and you start with a fresh system.
But I also don't run a lot of programs on the computers and what I do run I keep the data stored from them on a separate SSD mounted in the computer and use the primary drive for OS and program installs.
About the only thing I do OS upgrades on are the iPhones and my Mac and the Linux boxes and that's because it's more a PITA to do fresh installs on them than the Windows systems.

 

[Retro]

Yah, I don't do upgrades. I do fresh installs always as it is cleaner and you start with a fresh system.

Yeah, I used to do that in the XP days as otherwise it would import a whole load of problems from the previous install and run badly.

I think since about W7 though (I never used W8/8.1 due to the Start menu fiasco) this hasn't been a problem since Microsoft changed the way it does upgrades. AFAIK it's actually a clean install with the apps and settings imported into it and has worked very well for me, so the convenience outweighs the benefits of a clean install and the extra bloat that remains isn't a problem with today's large SSDs. The devil's in the details though, so if a clean install is best for you, who am I to say otherwise?

btw do you remember when W10 came out and you had a data drive formatted and connected to a W7 system, then let W10 see it, worked just fine, connected it back to W7 which then thought the drive had errors on it, did a full disc check, found nothing and continued just fine afterwards? Did it every time too, so I think it was due to W10 supporting a later NTFS version. I wasn't comfortable with this, so stopped letting W10 see the data drive by disconnecting the data cable. When I eventually fully migrated to W10 this wasn't a problem anymore as W7 was now history. I don't know if this happens between W10 and W11, so haven't let W11 see any of my data drives for now. I'll have to do a proper test on test drives with test data first before I allow it.