Updating ancient PCs to Win11

[Alex]

We still had a few older PCs in the house, that were not new enough to install Win11. They don't have the TPM chip, so Microsoft says that they are not compatible, and will not provide a Win11 update for them. Win10 is going end of life at the end of 2025, so people have a choice in either getting a new PC, or going without security updates.

More details in this ZDNet article here.

Ever since this info was released with Win11 several years ago, there have been workarounds to install Win11 on older hardware. Typically it required registry hacks to bypass the hardware compatibility checking. It never looked to onerous, but I never got over the hump of feeling that it was worth it. But after reading that article, and having a little bit of free time, I figured I'd try it.

With Rufus, there isn't really any "hacking" necessary. Download the Windows ISO, run Rufus, aim it at a USB stick. Plug USB stick into old PC. Boot up into Windows install - go to town. It automatically bypasses any restrictions. Couple learnings - you may have to change the option in Rufus between MBR and GPT, for older PCs. Make sure to download the US ISO if you don't want to install the International/UK ISO that it defaults to. But that's really about it. These PCs had Win10Pro on them before, and once logged in to the same PCs with the same MS account in Win11Pro, they automatically get the license so there is no charge - and even no need to take down all of the key and licensing information when you blow away the old one.

And now both PCs are happily running Win11Pro. They are still quite old, but now there is no longer a firm timetable when I have to junk or replace them.