Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

Wrong copy-paste, you meant this site:


I also found that opening a Command Prompt as Administrator and executing this command, displays your Windows activation status and if you have enrolled in ESU:

slmgr /dlv

Bree said:

According to Microsoft:
"The ESU license is tied to your Microsoft account, so you may be prompted to sign in if you typically sign into Windows with a local account"
Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program - Microsoft Support

I would expect that keeping a local account and adding your MS account for other apps to use should be sufficient, as it is for things like OneDrive and the Store.

View attachment 138435

Click to expand...

Thanks Bree. Yes of course I forgot you could sign into the store while still keeping a local account.

spapakons said:

Wrong copy-paste, you meant this site:

Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

I also found that opening a Command Prompt as Administrator and executing this command, displays your Windows activation status and if you have enrolled in ESU:

slmgr /dlv

Click to expand...

It's the same link Just clicked on both of them I just ran that very useful command in command prompt though, just to see what mine said Obviously I'm not enrolled in ESU but I was curious to note it said I had a "partial" product key and wondered what a rearm count is.

Installing Windows 24H2 on older Intel CPU without SSE4.2 using Intel® Software Development Emulator (Intel® SDE)

Out of curiosity I searched if VMware can emulate SSE4.2 instructions (like KVM on Linux) and I came across this site:


He claims that installing Intel® Software Development Emulator (Intel® SDE) emulates many instruction sets that the CPU normally doesn't have!


I am looking forward to try it on my test laptop (see 1st system specs). I am curious if it will work to upgrade to 24H2, if I would be able to boot into Windows after installation and of course how much is the performance penalty.

PS: I'm afraid that I won't be able to run 24H2 natively, probably in a virtual machine, but I will try and post results.

Hazel123 said:

I was curious to note it said I had a "partial" product key and wondered what a rearm count is.

Click to expand...

For security it only displays a 'partial' key (just the last 5 characters). Enough to identify which key you used, but not the full key that others could copy and use illicitly. The generic Pro key ends with 3V66T, for example.

For a volume licence the rearm count is how many more activations it has left. For a generic key it's meaningless and always shows as 1001.

Bree said:

For security it only displays a 'partial' key (just the last 5 characters). Enough to identify which key you used, but not the full key that others could copy and use illicitly. The generic Pro key ends with 3V66T, for example.

For a volume licence the rearm count is how many more activations it has left. For a generic key it's meaningless and always shows as 1001.

Click to expand...

Thank you.

If you want to see the whole key, download the ShowKeyPlus utility.

I've decided to install Windows 10 on an old laptop with a faulty screen. And just register for ESU. And will start another post on that laptop ............

Hazel123 said:

I've decided to install Windows 10 on an old laptop with a faulty screen. And just register for ESU. And will start another post on that laptop ............

Click to expand...

It doesn't matter that the screen is faulty, just connect it to your TV and use it to watch movies, including Netflix and other premium content providers. OR you can just connect an external PC monitor and convert it to a desktop PC.

spapakons said:

It doesn't matter that the screen is faulty, just connect it to your TV and use it to watch movies, including Netflix and other premium content providers. OR you can just connect an external PC monitor and convert it to a desktop PC.

Click to expand...

That would be interesting to see what happened actually, as I don't think it's the screen itself but something affecting the screen. The other post is here.

Oops! I think I overdid it! Compare my 3rd generation Intel Core-i3 3770 original specs and the "Future Intel CPU" specs emulated by SDE (see this post):



I'm afraid to find out what the performance penalty will be for using AVX512 or newer instructions...

Next task: to figure out how I can use SDE to run Windows 11 24H2 on my test laptop. Probably from a virtual machine... The plot thickens!

My 3rd generation Intel Core-i7 3770 (Ivy Bridge technology) doesn't support AVX2 instructions, so the maximum Mac OS version I could install in VMware was Mac OS 12 Monterey. However, this is currently the minimum version all applications require. One more version and it will be obsolete. Some applications such as Microsoft Office 2024 for Mac refuse to load in Monterey and ask for at least Mac OS X 13 Ventura or higher! In order to test how good SDE works (see this post), I attempted to run VMware Workstation with Haswell technology (4th Generation) emulation, but it crashed. I run VirtualBox instead and I am waiting for the Mac OS 15 Sequoia (last version) to download and test it. If I succeed running Mac OS 15 Sequoia in my unsupported CPU, then there is hope to run Windows 11 24H2 on CPUs without native SSE4.2 support. I will posts screenshots!

PS: I am now installing, it will take about 30 minutes, maybe more. Mac OS could not detect the virtual mouse, so I had to connect a second USB mouse and pass control of the device to the guest so Mac OS could use it! I guess I will have to put up with some minor incompatibilities like that...

PS2: Almost there! It installed but could not boot due to kernel panic (the equivalent of BSOD for Linux and Mac OS). I think I will have better luck with running 24H2 in my test laptop. It's past my bed time, I will try it tomorrow.