On October 14, 2025, Microsoft will Stop providing security updates to yours Windows 10 computer unless you’re willing to pay an exorbitant price to join Extended Security Update Program.
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If you try to upgrade Windows 11 on PC over a few years old, you will be explicitly informed that your old PC is not eligible because its CPU is not on Official list of compatible processors. Microsoft has made clear that it will not modify those requirements. You will also encounter problems if your PC does not have one Trusted platform module (TPM) version 2.0.
While that may be the official policy, as with everything Windows-related, you should read the fine print.
Those annoying limitations prevent you from automatically upgrading to Windows 11 using Windows Update or the Windows 11 Installation Assistant. However, there are still fully supported workarounds, as I document in ZDNET’s Windows 11 FAQ.
An important note: To take advantage of the solution described in option 1 below, your computer needs to meet all other requirements for Windows 11.
- It must be configured to boot using UEFI and not the old BIOS configuration.
- Secure boot must be enabled.
- Additionally, you need to enable TPM; version 1.2 is fine but systems without TPM or disabled TPM will fail.
To check these details on the PC you are considering upgrading, run the System Information utility, Msinfo32.exe, and view the System Summary page. Pay special attention to the BIOS Mode value. If it says “Legacy”, you will need to reconfigure your system to UEFI mode (and convert the system drive from MBR to GPT partition) before you can install Windows 11 as an upgrade. normal level.
To see if your PC has TPM enabled, run the Trusted Platform Module Management tool, Tpm.msc. If your computer has TPM and is turned on, this application will display information about it. If there is no TPM or if TPM is disabled in the firmware settings, you will see a message stating “Cannot find a compatible TPM”.
If you can’t (or don’t want to) change from Legacy BIOS to UEFI, or if you have an older PC that doesn’t have a TPM option at all, you’ll need to use an undocumented hack to complete the upgrade. See option 2 at the end of this article for details on how to use the free Rufus utility to perform this upgrade.
If you plan to perform a clean installation of Windows 11, you can boot from the installation media and run Windows Setup. That option completely bypasses CPU compatibility checking (but still requires TPM and Secure Boot support). Once the installation is complete, you’ll need to reinstall all apps, restore data files, and adjust settings to personalize your system preferences.
Want to avoid all that trouble? Follow these four steps.
Option 1: Use this simple registry edit to skip CPU checking and accept older TPM
You need to make a small change to the Windows registry, as documented in this document Microsoft support documents. This change requires Windows 11 Setup to bypass CPU compatibility checks and allow installation on PCs with older TPMs (version 1.2). Of course, the usual warnings apply when working with the registry, and I recommend that you create a complete backup before proceeding.
Open the registry editor (Regedit.exe) and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup
If the MoSetup key does not exist, you need to create it. Right-click the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup node in the left navigation pane, then choose New > Key. Name it MoSetup and press Enter.
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Select the MoSetup key and then right-click any empty space in the right pane. Select the option to create a new DWORD value. (Don’t choose the QWORD option!)
Replace the default name for that key by entering the text AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU and pressing Enter. Then double-click the new value and change the “Value data” box to 1. The result will be as follows:
Use this registry tweak to override Windows 11’s CPU and TPM compatibility checks.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
Click OK to save your changes, then restart your PC.
On the PC you want to upgrade, visit the Windows 11 Download page (aka.ms/DownloadWindows11) and select the option at the bottom of the page, “Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices.” Save the ISO file to your Downloads folder.
Note that this is a large file. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, the download may take a while.
Once the download is complete, open File Explorer and double-click the ISO file. Doing so will mount the file as a virtual DVD drive into its own folder.
In File Explorer, find the Setup.exe file and double-click it to start the upgrade. You’ll see a stern warning about compatibility issues, but after you click OK on that dialog box, your upgrade will continue without any serious problems.
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You will have three options: you can keep your apps, settings and files (Full Upgrade); keep your data files but start fresh with apps and settings (Keep data only); or start completely fresh (Clean Install).
Option 2: Use the free Rufus utility to bypass compatibility checking altogether
On older PCs without a TPM, and on PCs that don’t support Secure Boot, you’ll need to use an undocumented hack to get past the compatibility checker. You can do this manually by replacing the Appraiserres.dll file (in the Sources subfolder on the Windows 11 installation drive) with a 0-byte version. But it’s simpler to use the free, open source Rufus utility to create a USB drive containing this file.
Also: Why Windows 11 requires TPM – and how to fix it
To get started, you will need to download Windows 11 ISO and provide a USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 16 GB. You’ll reformat this drive as part of the process, so back up any data on the drive first.
- Download Rufus from the developer’s website or from Microsoft Store and run the application.
- Select the USB drive and then select the “Disk or ISO image” option.
- Click the Select button, select the Windows 11 ISO you downloaded earlier, then click Start.
- In the Windows User Experience dialog box, select the first check box to clear hardware requirements, as shown in the screenshot below.
- Click OK to start creating the drive.
Remember to select the top checkbox here to skip compatibility checking for Windows 11 upgrade.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
Once Rufus successfully creates your installer, open that USB drive in File Explorer and double-click Setup.
My ZDNET colleague Lance Whitney has more details about the other options available with Rufus in “How to install Windows 11 the way you want (and sneakily around Microsoft’s restrictions).”
If you’ve tried this upgrade, I’d love to hear about your experience. If it works, please share details. If you’re having trouble, email me so we can figure out what’s going on. Be sure to include details including your PC’s make and model as well as screenshots of any error messages. I’ve set up a special inbox just for this response: Win11Upgrade [at] realworldwindows.com.
This article was originally published on April 9, 2022 but has been updated several times since then. It was last updated on September 29, 2024.
