An unusual way to upgrade to Win11

My wife's computer is an old Dell (Win10, MBR system) with a second generation Intel CPU and no TPM. Trying to upgrade to Win11 resulted in an error about these incompatibilities...

CPU, TPM, Secure Boot.

I didn't want to use the registry hacks in case Microsoft inactives them later.

An image was created of the Win10 partition and restored to a Win11 compatible computer. Drivers were removed, NVMe drivers were installed and boot files were created. This was done in IFL. A Boot Item was created in BootIt for UEFI and the Win10 OS booted. Windows Update was performed and the OS was upgraded to Win11 from an ISO. All OK.

A backup image of the Win11 partition was created and was restored to HD1 in my wife's computer. Win10 is on HD0. After the IFL restore, drivers were removed. On rebooting into BootIt BM, a Win11 Boot Item was created. Win11 booted and Windows Update is working.

Win11 is sluggish because it's on a HD. Win10 is on a SSD. If Windows Update continues to work I'll move Win11 onto a SSD.

 

Nice!

 

Interesting. I have a desktop with a second gen CPU. Maybe I'll explore messing with it a little more.

 

Win11 is more sluggish than I'd expect for an OS on a HD. I'll let you know how both OS perform when I get them on the same SSD.

 

The problem is Windows 11 is designed to run on modern hardware. It will be sluggish on PCs older than 2015. You can of course upgrade but the experience isn't worth it.

 

This!

 

It runs just fine on my main computer, which is a laptop from 2013 with a 3rd gen i3 CPU. I've only been running Windows 11 on this system for a few hours, but so far, performance has been as good as Windows 10, if not slightly better. I'm also getting comparable performance to Windows 10, on two 15-year-old laptops, which originally came with XP.

 

Roger,

I assume each computer is a MBR system. Which method did you use for the upgrade?

 

This system is using GPT and I upgraded as per my post that @stapp linked to. My older systems are MBR and I upgraded when the beta version was first leaked, by using the method of copying files from a Windows 10 ISO, to bypass the system requirement checks.

 

Thanks Roger.

I'm afraid the naysayers miss out. I installed a larger SSD and now old Win10 and new Win 11 are both on the same drive. The new SSD. The difference in Win11 performance on the SSD is amazing. Both OS load in 18 seconds and I can't tell them apart in performance while in Windows.

I still have Win11 on the HD and its performance is totally different from its copy on the SSD.

 

Out of interest I copied my wife's Win10 partition (which is on the SSD) to the HD. It's performance on the HD is sluggish, just like Win11 on the HD.

On the SSD, both OS perform admirably. Amazingly well for an old computer with a second generation CPU.

 

xxJackxx,

Did you try this experiment?

 

I may still but have not had time.