Windows 11 upgrade incompatibility

[OVERKILL]

They started this on windows 10. They first ask you for your wifi credentials etc and then make you associate it with a msn/hotmail/xbox account. There's no way out of it unless you see the little button that says "no internet available." I found it nags you later as well. Of course there are ways around it later after your windows installation is setup. For my HTPC, I use a low power intel processor (5-10w) and ubuntu with no shell installed. It was a learning curve to setup, but rock solid and much more substantial than a Raspberry Pi 3.

There are workarounds, but it's a PITA. The Rufus route is much easier.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Thanks for this post. I wasn't aware of this with Rufus. Signing into MS account was a PITA, and I always had to disconnect from the internet.

In my experience tinkering with installing Windows 11 Pro this past weekend:

- A clean, unaltered Win11 installation thumbdrive made with the official Media Creation Tool, being unplugged from the network has no effect. It just waits until you connect to wifi and will go no further.

- Same, but having the wifi adapter disabled in BIOS (making it invisible to the installer) makes Windows just stop and stare dumbly at you, waiting for Internet connectivity before it can proceed and force you to log in with your Microsoft account.

- Win11 installer thumbdrive created with the Rufus tweaks, wifi disabled but network plugged in, it still gives you no other option but to log in with a Microsoft account.

- Only if the Win11 installer was created with the Rufus tweaks AND has no network connectivity will it allow you to create a local account and proceed.

Installing Windows 11 Home may be different but this is what I saw. FYI.

 

[vavavroom]

I "upgraded" my laptop to Windows 11 more than a year ago. My Optiplex desktop has an incompatible Intel Core i5-7500 3.4 GHz processor. No idea if they will add support for this processor or if there's a workaround. The PC meets all other criteria for compatibility with Windows 11.

 

[OVERKILL]

In my experience tinkering with installing Windows 11 Pro this past weekend:

- A clean, unaltered Win11 installation thumbdrive made with the official Media Creation Tool, being unplugged from the network has no effect. It just waits until you connect to wifi and will go no further.

- Same, but having the wifi adapter disabled in BIOS (making it invisible to the installer) makes Windows just stop and stare dumbly at you, waiting for Internet connectivity before it can proceed and force you to log in with your Microsoft account.

- Win11 installer thumbdrive created with the Rufus tweaks, wifi disabled but network plugged in, it still gives you no other option but to log in with a Microsoft account.

- Only if the Win11 installer was created with the Rufus tweaks AND has no network connectivity will it allow you to create a local account and proceed.

Installing Windows 11 Home may be different but this is what I saw. FYI.

You can open a command prompt and then launch task manager and then kill the Network Connection Flow process a few times until it lets you proceed.

 

[demarpaint]

Anyone have success updating to Win 11 Version 24H2 in systems not meeting the requirements? I noticed yesterday they made some major changes and updating computers that were incompatible but successfully running Win 11 won't update anymore.

 

[Pew]

Anyone have success updating to Win 11 Version 24H2 in systems not meeting the requirements? I noticed yesterday they made some major changes and updating computers that were incompatible but successfully running Win 11 won't update anymore.

After the update to 24H2 and the latest version of Rufus, I did not get the skip-checks/privacy checkbox that I screenshot on page 1. However, I did notice the privacy questions that pop up on a fresh install are not there anymore. I have not tried this on an unsupported, old laptop yet but I probably will next week to test out.

 

[demarpaint]

After the update to 24H2 and the latest version of Rufus, I did not get the skip-checks/privacy checkbox that I screenshot on page 1. However, I did notice the privacy questions that pop up on a fresh install are not there anymore. I have not tried this on an unsupported, old laptop yet but I probably will next week to test out.

Thanks. I'm going to hold off. If you care to share your results I'd be interested in them and what you check off in Rufus.

 

[Pew]

Thanks. I'm going to hold off. If you care to share your results I'd be interested in them and what you check off in Rufus.

Will do!

 

[demarpaint]

Well the cold weather and curiosity got the best of me. I read tons of horror stories, warnings, etc. and made a backup of the OS in the event something went bad. Bottom line I was successful in installing Win 11 24H2, and it is running fine on a system that doesn't meet the requirements. I used Rufus, checked everything but the last two boxes, however when I tried booting from the USB that Rufus created it was going to install Win 11 Home, not Pro which I am running, and I didn't want that hassle. So I exited and rebooted the system and went into the USB stick Rufus made clicked on setup.exe, told it to update and leave my apps and settings alone. It did go online and do a ton of downloading. I had everything configured properly in the version of Win 11 I was upgrading and didn't want the hassle of downloading and setting everything up again. It was successful and the system is updating properly.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

An update since I've been messing with this recently.

Lots of different experiences reported out there in forum posts and YouTube videos. Differences between the Windows 11 ISOs used and what version of Rufus was used would either make installing Windows 11 on either unsupported hardware or installing without a Microsoft account was giving users different results.

As of right now, with the current Windows 11 24H2 ISO and latest Rufus 4.6, I've been able to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware (and have it activate automagically if Win10 was on it previously) and was able to create a local account as long as it had no network connectivity. Tried on three different systems.

YMMV

 

[wavinwayne]

Yes, a bunch of work laptops that are still serviceable I used Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with the Win11 ISO. Rufus has options to bypass the incompatibility and a few other setup options:

My work IT must have done something similar. My desktop was supposedly "incompatible for W11 upgrade" but suddenly the powers that be decided all W10 machines must be upgrade to W11 and magically I'm now running W11.