W11 VM on Old MBR only computer - Working properly with sec boot and TPM emulator

Hi folks

Don't bother yourself too much with hardware requirements for running W11 espeacially a few years yet before W10 becomes dead. With a VM you can run W11 even on quite dated hardware.

on KVM/QEMU on an old Laptop -- SONY VAIO (doesn't even have USB3 support, only USB2 ) MBR Bios only and Intel core i5 computer (absolutely no UEFI or TPM) you can still get W11 to work properly with UEFI, secure boot and TPM V2 by running as a VM.

1) For TPM install package swtpm -- this installs the IBM emulator which works fine -- no need to configure - the VM will do that automatically, Install on the HOST system of course !!

2) for Secure boot and UEFI install package OVMF again on the HOST system. !!

3) now simply create your VM with boot options UEFI/secure boot and install



(Note on Arch Linux and possibly some other distros to get the libvirt (KVM/QEMU) system working properly you might also have to install package dmidecode.).

Nice to get an old Laptop into service again -- quite fast too -- this laptop had trouble even installing W10 latest versions !! but no prob running W11 as a VM.

Note - on the Windows 11 VM to check the TPM simply press Windows key + R (run) and enter tpm.msc



Cheers
jimbo

How old is 'old'?
I'm on i7-4800, runs fine for its age but I'm considering to disable HyperThreading after CentOS recommendation during install.

The VM is expected to run further, though I'm not sure if any real Win11 validation tools apply to a VM.

Hopachi said:

How old is 'old'?
I'm on i7-4800, runs fine for its age but I'm considering to disable HyperThreading after CentOS recommendation during install.

The VM is expected to run further, though I'm not sure if any real Win11 validation tools apply to a VM.

Click to expand...

Computer from 2015 so almost 7 years old.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks.
Yep, I'm on one of those as well.
Confirmed that it can handle the load, daily usage.

EDIT: it has 32gb ddr3, I'm not gonna trash it out just because it fails W11 specs.

W11 VM's run very well on non-compatible hardware using Hyper-V as well. On the left are the Whynot W11 results for aW11 Pro VM, and on the right for the host.