Microsoft lets you Install Windows 11 on Unsupported PC's as long as you have TPM 1.2 and it's turned on.

[+Warwagon MVC]

 

If you haven't already guessed, I'm the Adam they were referring to in the front-page news article. I thought I would take a moment to clarify a few things.

When I was installing Windows 11 on an older laptop, I noticed that it just let me install, even though I thought it had a CPU that was unsupported.

So I did a few more tests. I went over to my spare workstation with TPM 2.0 but a CPU from 2015, and sure enough, I booted up the Windows 11 setup, and the installation was smooth sailing with no roadblocks.

Then I went into my theater and tried it on that computer. I checked the TPM, and it said 1.2, but the setup failed and said it didn't meet the requirements for Windows 11, so I thought 1.2 was a roadblock, but I thought I should check to make sure it was enabled in the Bios. I checked, and it was turned off. Once I enabled it, it reported TPM 2.0 in Windows and Windows 11 had been installed without issue.

Then I turned my attention to a laptop from 2012.

It also failed the system requirements during setup. Once again, the TPM was disabled. Once enabled, I had no issues installing Windows 11. That TPM was 1.2

I then went back to my spare workstation and tried the setup again, this time with 23H2. It was also installed with no issues.

So gone are the days of modifying the setup installer to get around the system requirements. As long as you have TPM 1.2 and it's turned on, it appears the setup doesn't care.

Once you install Windows 11 you probably won't pass the system requirements for future feature updates. To install those, you will have to download the ISO and run setup.exe /product server.