Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

Easier than manually hacking the Registry is to use a script that patches it or create the USB with Rufus that patches the Registry in advance. Also the hybrid Windows 10/11 USB. Create a standard Windows 10 USB and replace install.esd or install.wim in the sources folder with the install.wim from Windows 11 ISO. Works perfectly for every clean installation.

spapakons said:

Easier than manually hacking the Registry is to use a script that patches it or create the USB with Rufus that patches the Registry in advance. Also the hybrid Windows 10/11 USB. Create a standard Windows 10 USB and replace install.esd or install.wim in the sources folder with the install.wim from Windows 11 ISO. Works perfectly for every clean installation.

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You can't do it in advance. These registry keys do not belong to Windows. Thy affect ONLY the Win PE (Preinstallation Environment). This means that they are temporary in nature because they are stored ONLY in RAM, and are never written to disk. As soon as the first reboot during installation happens, they are gone forever.

So, Jimbo, that also answers one of your concerns: this makes no change whatsoever to the final Windows installation, not even the registry is affected.

But, you do what you are most comfortable with, of course!

hsehestedt said:

You can't do it in advance. These registry keys do not belong to Windows. Thy affect ONLY the Win PE (Preinstallation Environment). This means that they are temporary in nature because they are stored ONLY in RAM, and are never written to disk. As soon as the first reboot during installation happens, they are gone forever.

So, Jimbo, that also answers one of your concerns: this makes no change whatsoever to the final Windows installation, not even the registry is affected.

But, you do what you are most comfortable with, of course!

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Hi there I enjoy your posts of course - always informative --so I'm not just "being an akward kuss" - so don't worry about whether we agree or not.

So many people these days are 100% intolerant in any sort of discussion that I'm not surprised that "Planet Earth" is in so much problem these days wherever you come from. We also have bad politicians too here at this dreadful time although we are better isolated from current world problems than most.. !!!!!

Cheers
jimbo

This is not exactly about old computers because it's about one from 2019. I was given an HP Desktop that came with Win10 Home and somehow the client got Win11 on it but it ended up corrupted. I did a reinstall of Win11 and it worked but there were 3 things missing:
PCI DataAcquisition and Signal Processing Controller
PCI Device [never figured out that that was]
SMBus Controller

Checking with HP showed no driver support for Win11, only for WIn10, so I booted the Win10 USB and did a clean install. After it was running those drivers got loaded on the first check for updates and all was good. Then I Upgraded to Win11 from a USB and the drivers remained, it's quite a good computer. Bottom line? Make sure the original install/Win10 is correct before trying Win11.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there I enjoy your posts of course - always informative --so I'm not just "being an akward kuss" - so don't worry about whether we agree or not.

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Same here. I'm not trying to push my method on anyone. I merely want to lay out the facts and share what I've learned and figured out through a lot of experimentation.

BTW, I feel the same about your posts. I've learned a lot of VM tricks from you and I always consider your posts "must read" material.

Thanks for a lively discussion!

Berton said:

This is not exactly about old computers because it's about one from 2019. I was given an HP Desktop that came with Win10 Home and somehow the client got Win11 on it but it ended up corrupted. I did a reinstall of Win11 and it worked but there were 3 things missing:
PCI DataAcquisition and Signal Processing Controller
PCI Device [never figured out that that was]
SMBus Controller

Checking with HP showed no driver support for Win11, only for WIn10, so I booted the Win10 USB and did a clean install. After it was running those drivers got loaded on the first check for updates and all was good. Then I Upgraded to Win11 from a USB and the drivers remained, it's quite a good computer. Bottom line? Make sure the original install/Win10 is correct before trying Win11.

Click to expand...

Berton, what I like to do is this:

If I have a good working installation of Windows 10 with all the drivers working, I will backup all the drivers like this:

1) OPTIONAL (but can make driver backup a lot smaller): Run the Driver Store Explorer utility found here:

https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer

To use it, do this:

NOTE: This procedure will NOT delete drivers that are in use on your system. It will only delete old versions of drivers and drivers not used by your system. If you then subsequently export drivers from your system, the export could be significantly smaller.

• After extracting the ZIP file contents to a folder, run RAPR.EXE
• Click any driver in the main window, press CTRL-A to select all drivers, and finally click inside any one of the check boxes. You should see all drivers become checked.
• To the right of the main window, make sure that “Force Deletion” is NOT checked, and then click the “Delete Driver” button.
• You will be asked if you are sure. Click on “OK”.
• After a little while you should get an error saying that some drivers could not be removed from the driver store. This is fine – this is simply a notification that indicates that any of the drivers that are in use were not deleted.
• Click “OK”.
• Close the program.

2) Export all drivers to a location of your choosing by opening an elevated command prompt and running this:

pnputil /export-driver * C:\Drivers

Replace C:\Drivers with whatever location you wish. When done, save that folder someplace safe.

3) Perform your clean install of Win 11

4) Restore the drivers like this:

Open an elevated command prompt and run this (again, replace C:\Drivers with the correct location):

pnputil /add-driver C:\Drivers\*.inf /subdirs /install

This will probably take a few minutes. Also, be aware that that the screen may go black for a brief time when the display driver is being installed.

That's all. You have just restored every driver with a single command.

I usually do that also but the corruption was too much to repair.

Berton said:

I usually do that also but the corruption was too much to repair.

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Ah yes, that makes sense. Always an adventure!

Berton said:

This is not exactly about old computers because it's about one from 2019. I was given an HP Desktop that came with Win10 Home and somehow the client got Win11 on it but it ended up corrupted. I did a reinstall of Win11 and it worked but there were 3 things missing:
PCI DataAcquisition and Signal Processing Controller
PCI Device [never figured out that that was]
SMBus Controller

Checking with HP showed no driver support for Win11, only for WIn10, so I booted the Win10 USB and did a clean install. After it was running those drivers got loaded on the first check for updates and all was good. Then I Upgraded to Win11 from a USB and the drivers remained, it's quite a good computer. Bottom line? Make sure the original install/Win10 is correct before trying Win11.

Click to expand...

The missing drivers where all related to the chipset drivers. You could keep Windows 11, download the chipset drivers for Windows 10 and install, boom everything OK. Next time ask, we can save you a lot of trouble

I've been building and repairing computers in shops for about 30 years [second career] and do know about drivers but when the manufacturer of a computer and Windows Update does not have them the brain has to decide what to do and how to do it to accomplish the goal of fixing things, usually try the easier methods first which in this case was the way to go. In the process I gained a computer worth somewhere between 299USD and 499USD in the Refurbished markets, all for the investment of my time.

I have said in many occasions that if there is no Windows 11 driver, use Windows 10 or 8 or 7 or even Vista 64-bit drivers. The exception is Intel graphics drivers for Windows 7 that are deliberately made incompatible with Windows 8 or newer.

spapakons said:

I have said in many occasions that if there is no Windows 11 driver, use Windows 10 or 8 or 7 or even Vista 64-bit drivers. The exception is Intel graphics drivers for Windows 7 that are deliberately made incompatible with Windows 8 or newer.

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And I have done just that many times but with this Core i5 Gen. 8 machine and BIOS from 2018 it just wasn't going to happen.

Berton said:

And I have done just that many times but with this Core i5 Gen. 8 machine and BIOS from 2018 it just wasn't going to happen.

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I'm on a system from 2010, and Windows 11 runs fine. All drivers available. Why is this 2018 machine any different?

SlicEnDicE said:

I'm on a system from 2010, and Windows 11 runs fine. All drivers available. Why is this 2018 machine any different?

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The question would have to be posed to HP as to how and why.

hsehestedt said:

No offense, Jimbo, but that's the easiest way?

How about this:

Start setup as normal by booting from your installation media. At the first static screen, press SHIFT + F10 to open a command prompt. Run this command:

reg add HKLM\System\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassTPMCheck /t reg_dword /d 0x00000001 /f

Follow up with 4 more commands as shown below:

reg add HKLM\System\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassSecureBootCheck /t reg_dword /d 0x00000001 /f reg add HKLM\System\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassRAMCheck /t reg_dword /d 0x00000001 /f reg add HKLM\System\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassStorageCheck /t reg_dword /d 0x00000001 /f reg add HKLM\System\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassCPUCheck /t reg_dword /d 0x00000001 /f

TIP: Since these commands are all identical except for the text in the middle of the command, just hit the up arrow after running the first command, then change that string. Also, you may not need to run all of these commands, but it won't hurt to do so. For example, if the only requirement you don't meet is the TPM, just run the first command.

That's all! Close the command prompt and continue installation in exactly the same way you would normally.

Click to expand...

Ive had Win11 since July 2021. Last week I did an inplace upgrade install hoping to fix Windows Search, which it did not. But my question for you is this- for months Ive been using a cmd bypass or two to enable my laptop to update and get the new Insider builds thru Windows Update and it's worked perfectly until the inplace upgrade. Ive run the command again rechecked to make sure its enabled, etc. But I still cannot update with Windows Update. Maybe I'm forgetting a second bypass cmd or reg tweak that I had to use a year ago, I'm not sure. Thought it was just the one cmd. Any help or advice is very appreciated.

The folks in the Windows Insider section of this forum may have better answers for the issue.

jonnboy1976 said:

Ive had Win11 since July 2021. Last week I did an inplace upgrade install hoping to fix Windows Search, which it did not. But my question for you is this- for months Ive been using a cmd bypass or two to enable my laptop to update and get the new Insider builds thru Windows Update and it's worked perfectly until the inplace upgrade. Ive run the command again rechecked to make sure its enabled, etc. But I still cannot update with Windows Update. Maybe I'm forgetting a second bypass cmd or reg tweak that I had to use a year ago, I'm not sure. Thought it was just the one cmd. Any help or advice is very appreciated. View attachment 37315

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First 3 things to check :

1) delete windows.old file via disk utilities or whatever.
2) ensure plenty of free space on the Windows install drive
3) Ensure you can install relevant updates via the correct options in the Windows insider program.


Cheers
jimbo

Windows Update checks compatibility and blocks the upgrade to a new build. All other updates do not check compatibility and install without any issue. To upgrade to the next build you have to bypass compatibility check. This is done by replacing a specific file when you see the message and then click retry.

johnboy1976,

Take a look at this article to see if it helps you to resolve the situation:

jimbo45 said:

First 3 things to check :

1) delete windows.old file via disk utilities or whatever.
2) ensure plenty of free space on the Windows install drive
3) Ensure you can install relevant updates via the correct options in the Windows insider program.


Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

Thank you. Still no luck.