22h2 Microsoft’s Updated Win11 ISOs Have a Nasty Surprise (NOT Clickbait!)

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

In trying to use Microsoft’s Updated Windows 11 ISOs, I have come to discover what may be a piece of very bitter news for many of us who are trying to run Windows 11 on unsupported CPUs.

It appears from my testing that Microsoft has implemented a much more stringent approach to blocking installation on devices with unsupported CPUs. When you try installing the OS on unsupported hardware using the recently released Win11_22H2_v2 ISO, of course, you still get your usual setup blocker error messages, with the infamous prompt:

Quote

“This PC does not meet the minimum system requirements to run Windows 11.”

But now if you circumvent that block (either through registry hacks or by replacing certain win11 setup files with the Windows 10’s setup’s counterparts, you are also going to get an uninvited visit from an old friend: the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

When you bypass the blocks and proceed with the installation, setup will at first appear to continue without a hitch—that is until you reboot. Immediately following your first reboot, you are greeted by the following:

Windows 11 BSOD with an error stating “UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR”

 

Here are answers to some of the most common questions I expect people will have.

Question: Did you boot from ISO (for a clean install)?

Answer: Yes, I booted from the ISO. After bypassing the initial blocks, I selected my partitions and started to install them. Once the installer rebooted, I would get the blue screen, resulting in an infinite boot loop with the same BSOD.

What happens when you try to do an in-place upgrade?

I tried doing an in-place upgrade on the RTM release of Win11 22H2, which I installed using the original 22H2 ISOs—which by the way proves that it’s the ISO, and not the OS, as I can still install Win11 22H2 RTM using old ISO and get it up to date to Moment 3 via cumulative updates!

After bypassing the blocks, the setup continues as normal. After the first reboot, you are quickly greeted by the same BSOD stating “UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR”. Fortunately, Alhamdulillah (Praise God), windows rolls back the upgrade attempt and you are returned to the desktop, thus, you are NOT left with a bricked PC, like you are when clean installing.

Were you able to install it using the old ISO?

Yes, as stated in the previous answer, using the RTM ISO of 22H2 still works, Alhamdulillah—if you can manage to get a hold of it! You should then be able to update to Moment 3 using Windows Update or by manually installing the KB package, Insha’Allah (God Willing)!

Did you try creating your own up-to-date ISO using UUPDump?

Yes, I did, but the problem persists. regardless of which method you use.

Did you try placing the new ISO’s Install.wim/esd file on a Win10 installation media, essentially having Win10 setup install Win11 for you?

Yup, and the problem is still there.  BSOD right after the first boot.

Did you modify the appraiserres.dll file to remove the requirements?

Yes, I did, Alhamdulillah, but still no luck. BSOD issue persists.

What processor are you using?

4th gen Intel Core i5. Have been running the latest insider builds of Win11 on it for about two years without any issues, Alhamdulillah!

What about Insider preview builds?

Now this one is REALLY surprising to me: I can, still, install insider builds, including the latest Canary build without any issues, as of yet.

 

***

 

I’m still doing additional tests; if there are other findings worth noting, I intend to amend them via replies to this thread, Insha’Allah (God Willing). 

Did you have any additional questions? If this has already been reported, my since apologies. I’m eager to find what, if any, solutions the community has come up with, Insha’Allah (God Willing)!

 

Thanks for reading, and may Allah (S.W.T.) guide you to Islam and bestow upon you His Blessings; Ameen.

~~~

*Please note: if you would like to discuss with me matters not related to the topic of this thread, please message me directory, and I am happy to discuss with you anything you would like to talk about, Insha'Allah.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Nazmus Shakib Khandaker
Made some formatting improvements and corrected additional spelling & grammar issues, Alhamdulillah!

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Its possible Windows 11 could now actually be making use of some functionality that is not supported by 4th Gen Intel processors.

I think something similar happened back with Windows 8 if I remember correctly. You could patch it to install on processors that didn't support PAE/NX/SSE2, however when such functionality was called Windows would crash.

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

On 08/06/2023 at 03:19, InsaneNutter said:

Its possible Windows 11 could now actually be making use of some functionality that is not supported by 4th Gen Intel processors.

I think something similar happened back with Windows 8 if I remember correctly. You could patch it to install on processors that didn't support PAE/NX/SSE2, however when such functionality was called Windows would crash.

You make a good point. I do remember the Windows 8.1 situation you are referring to.  I remember being surprised that certain Intel Pentium 4 (and even some Pentium III I think) could run Windows 8 albeit excruciatingly slowly, but could no longer even boot Win8.1. This was strange to me because one wouldn't think massive changes to supported processors would happen in the next major version of Windows, not halfway through an existing Windows version's lifecycle.

But at least with Windows 8.1, was a major build upgrade. If this happens with Windows 11 22H2, that is even more bizarre because Moment 3 isn't even a major build upgrade. it's a cumulative update. But it's understandable I guess, since Microsoft had explicitly stated they cannot guarantee that unsupported PCs will continue to receive updates.

Anyway, as you have said, it could be an actual functionality rather than an artificial block. Therefore, I decided to download the LATEST preview cumulative update from Microsoft Update Catalog and update my RTM Win11 22H2 to Moment 3 to see if it boot.

And, lo and behold--SubhanAllah--something is definitely broken; you might be on to something! (See screenshot below)

But first, here's what we know DOES WORK. I am running a canary build (rs_prerelease branch) that is currently a month old. I WAS able to update to the latest Canary build last week (from the zn_release branch) but had since rolled back due to instability. So we know that my CPU (the 4th gen intel i5 "Haswall" processor), can boot to Windows 11's latest insider builds, Alhamdulillah.

Since I am not looking forward to having to end up with a bricked PC, I am doing these initial testing in VMware Player (on the same PC/CPU), with the hopes that once I find a solution, I can attempt it in bear metal and see if it works, insha'Allah.

Here's the winvir screen after I installed Windows 11 22H2 using the RTM ISO.

Because installing with the fully updated ISO fails, I wanted to see if I can boot to the OS after I manually update to "Moment 3" by downloading the appropriate package from Microsoft Update Catalog, installing it offline, and rebooting.

And upon reboot, we have this:

 

This is, indeed, not a good sign.

However, because the latest insider builds ARE running on my bear-metal hardware, it IS possible that the virtualization also plays a key role in the blue-screening. Although, it must be reiterated, that Windows 11 22H2 RTM runs perfectly in the same VM.

 

My next plan of action (Insha'Allah)

Because we know that the insider builds run on the be bear metal hardware, what I want to try next is to upgrade the Win11 22H2 RTM VM to these insider builds that I know work on bear metal. If it is blue screens, I can confidently say that virtualization has something to do with it. If it DOES NOT blue screen, that is bad news. That most likely means whatever change that has been made in "Moment 3" hasn't been checked into the latest insider builds--yet. But it is an eventuality, meaning as soon as the "Moment 3" code is added in the insider builds, my Windows 11 journey on this particular PC is over. But, that's only currently a hypothesis. I will report my finding, as soon as I can, Insha'Allah (God Willing).

If anyone else has any other experiences with running Moment 2 or Moment 3 releases of Win11 22H2 on unsupported processors, please do share!

[binaryzero]

On average, how many times do you re-install Windows weekly?

 

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

On 08/06/2023 at 08:23, binaryzero said:

On average, how many times do you re-install Windows weekly?

 

Probably once a year on average. By reinstalling, I’m assuming wiping & starting fresh. Otherwise, I’m installing Windows almost every week (insider build).

However, the reason I came across this blue screen situation was because I’ve been planning to move from the dev to the Canary channel (not for the lack of features, but lack of stability). Anyway, this meant I once again need to reinstall Windows (first for 2023), as the dev builds have a lower number, meaning I can’t upgrade to them from Canary.

Therefore, I decided take this opportunity to try out the newly updated ISO.

(Thankfully, I decided to test the iso in a VM—just to be sure it works—so as to not end up with a broken install). And that is how I discovered this issue!

[Mockingbird]

Keep us updated.

Also, here is the link to the original Windows 11 22H2 iso, if you need it:

Windows 11 x64 22H2 Build-22622 English Multiple Edition OEM ISO : Mircrosoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

[Mockingbird]

On 08/06/2023 at 04:59, Nazmus Shakib Khandaker said:

And, lo and behold--SubhanAllah--something is definitely broken; you might be on to something! (See screenshot below)

I don't know what is causing that glitch with the video output, but it's not the processor.

I am running Windows 11 22H2 Moment 3 on a PC with 1st gen Core i7 processor and haven't noticed any issues.

Note that I installed Moment 3 (KB5026446) from Windows Update.

I have not tried a clean install with the new ISO.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Here's my SHA256 info from the one v1 documentation from Microsoft (it  now shows v2 iso info)

Win11_22H2_English_x64v1.iso
SHA256 - 0DF2F173D84D00743DC08ED824FBD174D972929BD84B87FE384ED950F5BDAB22

Wasn't there a secure boot / dbx / uefi bug or security fix that broke something with some configurations with Moment 3 (which v2 has built in) that affected some configurations?

Not saying I would put it past Microsoft putting a cpu "check" or turning on by default cpu security features that may not be present in unsupported on a clean install causing it to BSOD.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Eternal Tempest

[Mockingbird]

On 08/06/2023 at 19:58, Eternal Tempest said:

Not saying I would put it past Microsoft putting a cpu "check" or turning on by default cpu security features that may not be present in unsupported on a clean install causing it to BSOD.

Supposedly, Windows 11 doesn't support older processors because they don't have native support for Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI) aka Memory integrity.

That solution would be to simply turn off Memory integrity.

Enable or Disable Core Isolation Memory Integrity in Windows 11 Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum (elevenforum.com)

Of cause, this assumes that the issue isn't an artificial roadblock that Microsoft put to prevent people from installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware.

[Gotenks98]

Kind of wish they would stop this crazy nonsense for consumers. These security features are something the average user is never going to see or use. They are just hurting their users. 

[ThaCrip]

On 09/06/2023 at 09:57, Gotenks98 said:

Kind of wish they would stop this crazy nonsense for consumers. These security features are something the average user is never going to see or use. They are just hurting their users. 

That's pretty much my thoughts... like the extra security is not a big enough increase to justify stopping many competent PC's from running the OS officially.

because the way I see it... the average computer illiterate user, which is probably who they are trying to protect, if they ain't reasonably careful on what they allow to run on their computer etc, will eventually get hit with a virus anyways. so it's not really worth artificially increasing system requirements and stopping plenty of good CPU's from running the OS.

p.s. but Win11 is most likely not going to be widely adopted (or won't become the dominate OS like WinXP/Win7/Win10 have over the last 20 years or so) given the history of Microsoft with good/bad/good/bad OS pattern (which has held true since Win98 to date) and Win11 is on the 'bad' cycle.

Edited June 9, 2023 by ThaCrip

[Mockingbird]

On 09/06/2023 at 07:33, ThaCrip said:

That's pretty much my thoughts... like the extra security is not a big enough increase to justify stopping many competent PC's from running the OS officially.

because the way I see it... the average computer illiterate user, which is probably who they are trying to protect, if they ain't reasonably careful on what they allow to run on their computer etc, will eventually get hit with a virus anyways. so it's not really worth artificially increasing system requirements and stopping plenty of good CPU's from running the OS.

p.s. but Win11 is most likely not going to be widely adopted (or won't become the dominate OS like WinXP/Win7/Win10 have over the last 20 years or so) given the history of Microsoft with good/bad/good/bad OS pattern (which has held true since Win98 to date) and Win11 is on the 'bad' cycle.

Windows 11 isn't going to be widely adopted because of the heightened system requirements, not because of any issue with the OS.

[KaoDome]

On 09/06/2023 at 04:58, Eternal Tempest said:

Isn't there a secure boot / dbx / uefi bug or security fix that broke something with some configurations with Moment 3 (which v2 has built in) that affected some configurations?

I was about to ask if Secure Boot was enabled prior to Windows being installed.

I had to perform an installation in a machine that meets the requirements of Windows 11 not long ago, if SB was enabled prior to the installation, a slew of security features got enabled as well (they're supported, VBS, core isolation, memory integrity that sort of thing), if it wasn't, none would.

I'm thinking that if they go by requirements and Secure Boot was enabled perhaps there are no other tests for processor features being present, they're assumed to be.

[ThaCrip]

On 09/06/2023 at 10:57, Mockingbird said:

Windows 11 isn't going to be widely adopted because of the heightened system requirements, not because of any issue with the OS.

Fair enough, but my general point remains... Microsoft's good/bad/good/bad pattern still holds up with Win11 on the 'bad' cycle.

but it will be interesting to see how things play out with Windows 12 if they keep these higher requirements. because support for Win10 ends in Oct 2025 and unless Win12 is out and doing decent by then etc, it will be interesting to see what people do as I suspect many will just continue using their Win10 hardware as-is beyond that date since I suspect many will continue using their computer unless something breaks. but maybe a good portion of the general public will have moved onto newer hardware by then to where the higher system requirements might not be as big of a deal(?).

[neufuse Veteran]

tried this here and no BSOD, maybe your hardware is the issue? I also tried it in VirtualBox 6 which has no TPM support and it also works with the bypass with the latest ISO's

[adrynalyne]

On 10/06/2023 at 05:36, neufuse said:

tried this here and no BSOD, maybe your hardware is the issue? I also tried it in VirtualBox 6 which has no TPM support and it also works with the bypass with the latest ISO's

I guess Allah wasn’t on their side for this one. 

[erpster3]

On 10/06/2023 at 10:12, adrynalyne said:

I guess Allah wasn’t on their side for this one. 

I second that.

I'm getting the result that neufuse is getting and not the OP - no BSOD "unsupported processor" message when installing & running win11 22h2 build 22621.1702 on my old HP desktop PC - and it uses a very old AMD processor, not Intel.  AND this is on a legacy bios (non-UEFI) computer which, of course, has no secure boot & no tpm 2.x module - see my screenshot below (I have Win11 Education edition instead of Win11 Pro):

 

OP should definitely check the hardware or try to use another flash drive for the updated win11 22h2 setup files

[Mockingbird]

I just installed Windows 11 using the newest ISO from Microsoft's website on a 3rd gen Core i3 laptop that doesn't even have UEFI.
 

Install proceed as expected and I did not encounter an error.