I’m posting this hoping that one or more of my lessons learned might be helpful to someone(s). The main reason for putting Win11 on the tablet was that Win10 had just gotten too big since the last update that required a full reinstall – the tablet only has 32GB total storage, & it was getting [too] close to full. I could have as easily reinstalled the latest version of Win10 -- I’d already downloaded the latest Insider ISO – but Win11 is a bit nicer about updates, only downloading the parts you need rather than the full package like Win10. So, I set the Win10 ISO aside as Plan B.
Currently it *seems* the only risk to installing Win11 on unsupported hardware is that sometime in the future Microsoft *may* push out an update that requires one of the hardware specs they’ve listed. The point about low risk was driven home for me when one of the guys at Microsoft did a developer-targeted presentation running Win11, on an unsupported laptop (!). If it does come to that, & I can no longer update, I’ll simply install the latest copy of Win10… while Win10 is set to reach EOL in 2025, extended support will *probably* last somewhere between a few & 5 years. There were hacks to get extended support, with updates, for XP & Win7 – in fact Win7 extended support is still ongoing – so I feel it reasonable to think that things will work the same way with Win10. That’s assuming that Microsoft doesn’t extend Win10’s EOL or come up with another Windows version without the stiff hardware requirements. They are All about making money, and part of their strategy for years has been to have the maximum number of people using Microsoft products. Microsoft is also not shy about trying to steer people & organizations in the directions they prefer. I think it’s conceivable that right now they’re trying to force new hardware that allows greater security with Win11, at the same time realizing that they’ll have limited success. They don’t want to lose millions, maybe even a billion or two of users, and it would be smart to have something already in the works to retain them.
The first hurtle in this project was that the registry entries that Microsoft & everyone else talks about to enable an upgrade to Win11 on unsupported hardware don’t work if/when you have less than 4GB of RAM and less than 64GB of disk space. I did not try the script that I used to upgrade to Win11 in a VM, but used another trick instead… I downloaded the latest Win11 ISO, mounted it in Windows, copied the files to a USB stick, dismounted the ISO, then replaced a file in the Win11 ISO named appraiserres.dll with the version from the Win10 v.1809 ISO [Note: ISOs for other Win10 versions may not work - I used an app called Windows ISO Downloader to get the 1809 ISO]. That stops Win11’s setup routine from checking hardware requirements. And it worked just fine. My problem was that the upgrade process after rebooting was just so terribly slow – like 15 minutes for a 1% increase – that the battery died before it finished. It might be that the tablet is just too slow, or have something to do with needing to use a USB stick during setup for overflow, since there wasn't the 10GB of free disk space it said it needed. [My tablet has only one mini-USB port to handle power or USB but Not both.]
The reason for choosing to upgrade rather than install fresh was to keep the current drivers, but since that didn’t work, the next choice was to boot to a USB stick with Win11’s setup files. Problem is that even though installing Win11 that way there are fewer hardware checks, Win11’s setup still does check RAM & disk space – and that file replacement trick didn’t work. What did work was replacing Install.wim in a Win10 ISO with the install.wim file from the Win11 ISO – that .wim file is the image with everything Windows needs to install & run, so when I ran Win10’s setup routine it installed Win11. [Note: it is possible that during setup, using the Shift + F10 keys to open a command prompt, and from there Regedit, you might be able to turn RAM and disk space checks off, but I don’t know what new registry entries you’d have to create – the common version of the hack just turns off TPM & CPU checking.] To alter the setup files, replacing the install.wim file, you can use Microsoft’s media creation tool to create the bootable USB stick, or the free app, Rufus with a downloaded ISO, then copy/paste the new .wim to the USB stick.
The next problem occurred when setup stalled looking for available Wi-Fi networks. Shift + F10 brought up the command prompt, typing taskmgr & pressing Enter brought up Task Mgr., where I was able to stop the network flow process, and setup continued. That also lets you setup Windows with a local instead of Microsoft account while preventing any downloads, which is good from a time to completion standpoint.
After immediately shutting Win11 down to recharge the battery, I started Win11 back up and went first off to Device Mgr. Loads and LOADS of components were listed as unknown. I expected some driver problems – just not that many – so I had copied the Windows\ System32\ DriverStore\ FileRepository\ folder when the tablet was still running Win10. Now it was a matter of updating every component, starting with the unknowns, having Windows search a copy of the FileRepository folder. [Right-click the component, click Update Driver, click Browse for drivers on your computer, and then click the browse button, navigating to the folder with the drivers. Make sure the box to include subfolders is checked.] Note: sign into Windows more often than usual, or repeatedly spend too little time with it running – both circumstances that may happen trying to set up Windows – and Windows may disable your sign-in PIN, with a notice that it detected a brute force attack. There’s no publicly available documentation on what triggers it, or how to restore things to normal, but it’s been found that if you keep Windows running for 2-3 hours it’ll fix itself. And yes, sleep seems to count.
After all that Win11 was working, IMHO noticeably better than Win10 ever had – I’ve read lots of statements that Win11 will just not run on 2GB of RAM, and with time it may outgrow the meager 32GB of storage, but those cautions, or complaints also apply to Win10. Still, I had one Big problem – Bluetooth was messed up Big Time. Working at my desk I have the tablet plugged in, so I don’t have to worry about the battery running out, using a Bluetooth mouse & keyboard. That FileRepository folder holds every driver installed, plus some that come with Windows, but not the setup or installation files for those drivers. Usually that doesn’t matter, since the included .inf file tells Windows what it needs to do to install those drivers… Usually… I had to do a bit of hunting online to find the complete driver setup *with an installer*, but that did the trick, fixing Bluetooth on the tablet.
Why didn’t I put the Win11 setup files on the tablet’s microSD card, which would let me keep the tablet plugged in during the upgrade attempt? The tablet doesn’t see that card until Windows starts and fires up the driver, so setup fails during the initial reboot. On another note: as I’ve often found, Windows had altered the UEFI BIOS, so when I went into the BIOS setup, or tried to use the boot drive menu, I could not select to boot from the USB stick that had the Win11 setup files on it. As usual, restoring the BIOS defaults, saving & restarting fixed that. A potential problem is that those defaults may or may not be the settings that your device should have, so before you restore those defaults, note every setting in the BIOS, maybe taking a quick snapshot of the screen with your phone, because there can be a Bunch. Then when it restarts you can go into the BIOS settings, make sure everything is correct, select the USB stick as the boot drive, save & restart.
There are a couple of alternatives to installing Windows using ISOs &/or the setup files they include. One way is to use DISM [included in Windows] to *apply* that install.wim image file I mentioned earlier. [Note: some ISOs will have a file named install.esd – that’s an encrypted .wim file – Google for directions on converting to .wim if/as needed.] What applying an image does is copy the files Windows needs to a hard disk or other storage. It does not add any drivers, and it doesn’t add the needed boot files. It’s generally quicker than the full installation that it’s a part of, but adding the boot files can be tricky – you have to create the partition for them first, and I’ve had the tool you use, BCDBoot [also included in Windows], create boot files that didn’t work -- *hopefully* that was just with the version of the tool included in one or two versions of Win10, but I can’t be certain. Another option is to create a Windows To Go drive or USB stick, back up the Windows Partition on it, and restore that backup to the drive in the device you’re installing Windows on. Depending on the tool you use to create the Win 2 Go drive/stick, you might also be able to do that with the boot files – some use regular Windows boot files, some do not. Either way you’re relying on Windows to find and add drivers the first time you start it, and that may not always work, but then neither does installing Windows normally [as I somewhat sadly found]. While you do more work restoring a backup, since you 1st create the Win 2 Go drive, the restore process is *probably* faster than using DISM. To use DISM however you have to follow the directions to download & install the Windows ADK, which is huge, then create the WinPE USB stick you’ll need to boot from so you can use DISM.
