Solved Need an authoritative answer - what still works for UPGRADE installation of Win 11 24H2?

jimminy · Oct 11, 2024

hsehestedt said:
Okay, last post for today: Forget my entire last post. I see I'm looking at this all wrong. Will resume tomorrow. Burned out today

Some days do end that way, but tomorrow is another day. The light seems different and sometimes things do go better, but even if not, we can often see things we missed yesterday.

I always miss a lot at first. Sometimes I catch up, but not always.

But we all need rest.

hsehestedt · Oct 12, 2024

Well, that was enough of a break. But now I really am done because I have it all worked out.

No, I have not figured out the underlying magic of how to set the image property to "server", but I have a limited lifespan and wimlib does the job so well, and so quickly, that I am happy to just use it. Now I don't have to speed weeks figuring out how to do this. Within about 3 minutes I started my upgrade over 23H2 on non-compliant hardware. The upgrade went flawlessly with me not having to do anything.

@garlin, thanks so much for pointing me to this.

hsehestedt · Oct 12, 2024

@garlin, I have one follow-up question. You had referenced the wimlib utility to change the INSTALLATIONTYPE property to SERVER. Would you know what the default property for Windows 11 is? I completed integrating this into my program and it works just great. Since I also add the bypass registry entries into the BOOT.WIM, I now have Windows ISO images that will work on unsupported hardware both for clean and upgrade installations.

But for the sake of completeness in my documentation, I was wondering what the default property is so that if I ever needed to do so I could change it back. I can't seem to find this documented anywhere nor have I figured out a way to query for the current value.

Thanks again for the help. This is a major "big deal" for me!

SIW2 · Oct 12, 2024

Would you know what the default property for Windows 11 is?

you could export the xml file and get it from there

wimlib-imagex info "%wimpath%" %indno% --extract-xml=c:\file.xml

<INSTALLATIONTYPE>Client</INSTALLATIONTYPE>

a thing I did at sevenforums 7 or 8 years ago used wimlib to change the properties in install.wim after using the edition upgrade method.

here are some snippets from the big .cmd file wot I made

%wimlib% export %wimdir%\sources\boot.wim 2 "%TP%\WinRE.wim" --boot --compress=LZX:100
echo.
%wimlib% info "%TP%\Winre.wim" 1 --image-property "FLAGS=9"
...

IF %HP% EQU 0 (
for /f "tokens=1,2 delims=- skip=1" %%a in ('bin\ConvertDateHex.exe /C') do set "HP=%%a"& set "LP=%%b"
)
echo.
%wimlib% info %wimdir%\sources\Install.wim %INDNO% --image-property CREATIONTIME/HIGHPART=%HP% --image-property CREATIONTIME/LOWPART=%LP%
...

start "Props" /wait cmd.exe /v/c "@echo off& (for /l %%a in (2,1,%n%) do %wimlib% info %wimdirpath%\sources\$install.wim %%a --image-property "NAME=!nred_%%a!" --image-property "DESCRIPTION=!nred_%%a!" --image-property "FLAGS=!ned_%%a!" --image-property "DISPLAYNAME=!dd_%%a!" --image-property DISPLAYDESCRIPTION="!dd_%%a!")"

garlin · Oct 12, 2024

The image properties are tagged whenever you create a WIM, but not all WIM capture tools will support editing some of the properties. You can use wimlib-imagex to change a sysprepped image, if needed.

Code:

wimlib-imagex.exe info F:\Y50-70\PURGE\Downloads\install.wim 1

Information for Image 1
-----------------------
Index:                  1
Name:                   Windows 11 Home
Description:            Windows 11 Home
Display Name:           Windows 11 Home
Display Description:    Windows 11 Home
Directory Count:        25269
File Count:             112116
Total Bytes:            18727965088
Hard Link Bytes:        8546312165
Creation Time:          Fri Sep 06 04:20:49 2024 UTC
Last Modification Time: Fri Sep 06 05:06:58 2024 UTC
Architecture:           x86_64
Product Name:           Microsoft« Windows« Operating System
Edition ID:             Core
Installation Type:      Client
Product Type:           WinNT
Product Suite:          Terminal Server
Languages:              en-US
Default Language:       en-US
System Root:            WINDOWS
Major Version:          10
Minor Version:          0
Build:                  26100
Service Pack Build:     1742
Service Pack Level:     0
Flags:                  Core
WIMBoot compatible:     no

SIW2 · Oct 12, 2024

Pics from my regular wim-info.cmd that I have been using for years.
I only needed to change a couple of lines to make the wim-serverflag.cmd in post linked below

Need an authoritative answer - what still works for UPGRADE installation of Win 11 24H2?

OK The iso route is the problem because often doing an upgrade via the setup.exe fails and you are left with an unbootable system. The safest way is to again Image your current system, save the drivers etc, create a Virtual machine and restore your OS to a VM. While using the VM the video and...

www.elevenforum.com

Bree · Oct 12, 2024

hsehestedt said:
...this is for systems not meeting Win 11 requirements (other than the need for CPU to support SSE4.2).....

I know that there are literally hundreds of posts on this topic, but even following info in those posts I cannot get an upgrade installation to work.

These registry changes work, they're the ones Rufus will now be using.....

24H2 In-Place upgrade fix for RUFUS v4.5 created 24H2 install USB

⚠️ Update: RUFUS has been updated to version 4.11. The fix below should no longer be needed Create the USB using Rufus In File Explorer, open the USB and run Setup.exe Version info: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/tag/v4.6 Previously (For Rufus 4.5): Work around for In-Place...

www.elevenforum.com

I've just tested an in-place upgrade of Windows 10 on my unsupported System Four using a completely standard 24H2 usb made by the MCT and a .bat file with these reg changes (you can leave out the TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators one, it still works with them left in place).

Code:

reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\CompatMarkers" /f
reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Shared" /f

REM reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\TargetVersionUpgradeExperienceIndicators\GE24H2" /f

reg.exe add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\HwReqChk" /f /v HwReqChkVars /t REG_MULTI_SZ /s , /d "SQ_SecureBootCapable=TRUE,SQ_SecureBootEnabled=TRUE,SQ_TpmVersion=2,SQ_RamMB=8192,"
reg.exe add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup" /f /v AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU /t REG_DWORD /d 1
pause

For the first time ever I saw the MS disclaimer....

Windows 11 Setup - warning - doesn't meet minimum requrements.png

....just click Accept to continue.

Windows 11 Setup - accepted - doesn't meet minimum requrements.png

SIW2 · Oct 12, 2024

I havent tested but I guess you dont get that disclaimer if using the image properties method

which according to the link Garlin posted

Need an authoritative answer - what still works for UPGRADE installation of Win 11 24H2?

OK The iso route is the problem because often doing an upgrade via the setup.exe fails and you are left with an unbootable system. The safest way is to again Image your current system, save the drivers etc, create a Virtual machine and restore your OS to a VM. While using the VM the video and...

www.elevenforum.com

is

the least invasive method to disable both clean installation and online upgrade checks

It is very eay to do using the little wim-serverflag.cmd

hsehestedt · Oct 12, 2024

SIW2 said:
I havent tested but I guess you dont get that disclaimer if using the image properties method

That is correct. You won't even see that warning.

Thanks everyone for your responses. I think that I now have everything I need.

I've been hammering on my program this morning and all looks good. I end up with Windows images now that consistently work to perform both clean installs and upgrade installs on unsupported hardware without having to do anything - just install as if it was fully supported hardware.

Solved Need an authoritative answer - what still works for UPGRADE installation of Win 11 24H2?

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