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Hello — I have old computers — they all are running windows 10.  The update screen noted that the “hardware on this computer does not support windows 11”

I was browsing on Ebay for laptops and found an older HP Laptop circa 2010 was for sale and it was running win 11 —

Does win 11 have a bypass for older hardware when it was installed?

 

fpefpe

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Win11 can be installed on non-compliant (ineligible) machines using several workarounds. There are Topics on this site with instructions (and on Google as well). If you are considering buying a machine, be sure it actually complies with Win11 hardware requirements if you expect to get long term use.

The caveat is that you never know when MS is going to block the workarounds and you end up having to install some other OS (or you end with a boat anchor).

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thanks for info

fpefpe

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I have a 2011 vintage HP ProBook 6460b laptop.  HP’s support for this device ended with Windows 8.1.

I retired it from regular use in 2020, then upgraded it to Windows 10 and use it for a media PC.    It is unsupported by Microsoft for upgrade to Windows 11 (old CPU, TPM 1.2, Secure Boot missing), but rather than scrap it I wanted to see if I could force it and get some more use out of it.  Here’s what worked for me.  Windows 11 Pro 24H2, FWIW.

Things you need:
• (1) USB flash drive, minimum 8 GB, to host the Windows 11 ISO to be installed.
• (1) USB drive or flash drive, large enough to hold an image backup of your notebook’s bootable drive.
• Image backup software. I used the free Acronis True Image that Crucial provides for its SSD customers (free download, but only runs if you have a Crucial SSD).
• (1) A bootable DVD or bootable USB flash drive, loaded with your backup software’s disk restoration executable – in case you need to restore your notebook to its starting state.
• A copy of Rufus (free download).
• A copy of the Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft (free download).
• Optional: A copy of the MiniTool Partition Wizard (free download).

Steps:
1. Download and install Rufus.
2. Download the Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft.
3. Use Rufus to load the Windows 11 ISO onto the 8 GB flash drive. Choose either GPT or MBR, whichever way your notebook presently boots. Check all the overrides for the features your notebook lacks (CPU, memory, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, etc.). If you want a local account instead of a Microsoft account, specify that also.
4. Make a full image backup of your notebook’s bootable drive, just in case you need to restore everything.
5. Insert the 8 GB USB flash drive.
6. Open File Explorer and navigate to the root of the 8 GB flash drive.
7. Run (execute) the Setup.exe file. Windows 11 installs.

Notes:
1. Rufus instructions state to insert the 8 GB USB drive and then to boot from it. This isn’t strictly necessary – you can also run its Setup.exe on the flash drive file from within Windows 10, instead.
2. The HP ProBook 6460b has limited UEFI capability.  It can boot UEFI / GPT from the SSD, but cannot so boot from a USB GPT flash drive.
3. I changed my notebook’s BIOS boot settings from BIOS / MBR to UEFI / GPT, then wiped all my SSD drive partitions, then reinstalled Windows 10 prior to attempting to install Windows 11, just to ensure that my notebook would successfully boot UEFI / GPT before I proceeded further. (This was also where I discovered that I couldn’t boot a UEFI / GPT USB flash drive to start the Windows 11 install.)
4. In Windows 10, the default size for the WinRE recovery partition is too small to allow the installation of the WinRE security patch. After reinstalling Windows 10 I used the MiniTool Partition Wizard to reduce the C: volume partition and to increase the WinRE partition to 750 MB.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Kathy Stevens

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