Windows 11 Install without Meeting Requirements

Windows 11 released to the world last week and as I predicted: the TPM, Secure Boot and CPU requirements can all be bypassed. Depending on how you are trying to install Windows 11, you have several options. If you are trying to do an in-place upgrade from within Windows 10 itself, you can do a Google search for AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU. Creating this registry key will cause the Windows 11 setup program to ignore the CPU check and will allow you to proceed with TPM 1.2, however, you still need a TPM chip.

To bypass all requirements, you need to run the Windows 11 install from a bootable USB stick. Copy the following into notepad and save as bypass.reg to the USB stick:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
"BypassTPMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassSecureBootCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassRAMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassStorageCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassCPUCheck"=dword:00000001

Boot to the Windows 11 setup using the USB stick. During the setup, you will get an error your PC is not supported. Click back to the main screen. At this point, you can hit SHIFT-F10 to get to a CMD prompt, type regedit and then go to File>Import and import bypass.reg above. You can now proceed installing Windows 11.

Techpowerup did a really nice write-up here on the process:

https://www.techpowerup.com/287584/windows-11-tpm-requirement-bypass-it-in-5-minutes

Rufus now has a beta version that will create a bootable ISO with all of these restrictions removed called “Windows 11 Extended Support”: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/. Note that you can only do clean installs using the bootable USB stick method and the upgrade option does not work from the bootable media.

Update: this now works for in-place upgrades as well! https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/04/rufus-3-18-adds-support-for-windows-11-inplace-upgrade-bypasses/

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