Windows 11 on an older PC

How to get an old PC or laptop to run Windows 11

If you have an old laptop which is running Windows 10 very nicely, but when you tried to upgrade it to Windows 11 you got a message telling you your PC was too old and not supported by Windows 11, it’s quite likely that your PC is perfectly able to run Windows 11, but Microsoft have put some artificial limits in place to prevent older PCs and laptops from upgrading.

This 5 page PDF document shows how to create a USB stick which you can use to upgrade a Windows 10 PC to Windows 11. It takes about 2 or 3 hours, and all you need is a blank USB stick (at least 16GB ).

OR

If you’d like to do a fresh install of Windows 11 on an old PC/laptop, this 4 page PDF document shows how to create a USB stick which you can use to do a fresh install of Windows 11. It takes about 2 or 3 hours, and all you need is a blank USB stick (at least 16GB ).

If for some reason you’re not able to make a new USB stick using the above methods, but you already have a Windows 11 USB stick created using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool , here’s how you can use it to do a fresh install of Windows 11 on an old PC:

• boot your PC from the Windows 11 USB stick
• when it shows the ‘Install Windows’ screen, press Shift-F10 to open a Command Prompt
• run REGEDIT to open the Registry Editor
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup and add a new key called LabConfig
• under LabConfig, create a new DWORD(32-bit) named BypassTPMCheck and set its value to 1.
• under LabConfig, create a new DWORD(32-bit) named BypassSecureBootCheck and set its value to 1.
• exit Registry Editor and continue with installing Windows 11.

This should avoid you seeing the ‘your PC is not supported by Windows 11’ error messages.