Microsoft just blocked a commonly used trick to install Windows 11 on a PC that doesn’t meet the system requirements
Windows 11 can be installed on PCs that don’t meet the operating system’s hardware requirements using a few different workarounds, but one of those tricks no longer works – or at least Microsoft appears to have patched the hole in testing.
The register reports that, as pointed out by Bob Pony on X, the workaround Microsoft apparently wants to block, known as the ‘setup.exe /product server’ workaround, has indeed been defeated in preview build 27686 in the Canary Channel (released a week ago).
The recently released Windows 11 Insider Build 27686 (Dilithium) has patched the temporary workaround “setup.exe /product server” to bypass the system requirements check. 😢 pic.twitter.com/G9Q1v3O1uUAugust 15, 2024
What this particular requirement bypass measure does is fool the installer into thinking it’s installing Windows Server, when in fact it’s installing Windows 11. Since Windows Server doesn’t have the same stricter requirements (you don’t need TPM 2.0, for example), this sneaky installation method will work on a PC that’s not officially eligible for Windows 11.
Or it will walk Whether this works well on such a PC is a completely different story. Therefore, we advise against using such a trick.
That said, people do use this and other tricks to install Windows 11 on hardware that’s older and not officially compatible, and they manage to get it to run without any issues – but it’s obviously a risk.
Analysis: A bug, perhaps? It seems unlikely…
As The Register points out, it’s possible that this is simply a bug in the Windows 11 preview build. This is, after all, the Canary Channel, the earliest testing platform that tends to have more bugs than other builds.
However, we think it’s more likely that this is an intentional move by Microsoft. If that’s the case, there’s still time for people to use the above trick to install Windows 11, because as Bob Pony points out, it still works fine with Windows 11 24H2 (the incoming update expected later this year). This is apparently a change for Windows 11 in 2025 – but we don’t know for sure, and Microsoft could still be planning to include it in the 24H2 update (it’s just not in there yet).
Another known workaround to tamper with a Windows 11 installation on an unsupported PC is to use the Rufus utility. So there are still options, although Microsoft seems to want to close down this kind of trick – perhaps because Windows 10 is reaching End of Life next year.
In any case, we must emphasize that we do not recommend installing an operating system on a device that does not officially support it – at least not for the average user.