Less than a year before the end of Windows 10 maintenance, Microsoft confirms the possibility of installing Windows 11 on non-compatible PCs, but by clearing itself of any potential problem and adding two small painful warnings.
After ten years of good and loyal service, the venerable Windows 10 will bow out on October 14, 2025, in a little less than a year. After this date, the system will of course remain functional, but will no longer receive any updates, either quality or security. Continuing to use a computer with Windows 10 will therefore be possible, but will expose you to increased hacking risks and potential stability problems.
For owners of a computer still using this operating system, several solutions are possible depending on the cases shown. If the PC meets the hardware requirements, the easiest way is to upgrade to Windows 11 for free, provided that the software you absolutely need works with this version. For incompatible PCs, however, things are a little more complicated.
The solution recommended by Microsoft, but also the most expensive, is to invest in a new computer compatible with Windows 11. For those who do not want or cannot afford such a purchase, Microsoft offers an extended maintenance program for Windows 10 , for the sum of $30, which will allow you to benefit from an additional year of maintenance. A short-term respite that isn't really worth the price.
There then remain two possible routes: replace Windows 10 with a Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint or even Fedora, or force the installation of Windows 11 using a technique to bypass the system's hardware requirements. The maneuver is quite simple and does not require any particular computer knowledge, but it still has some drawbacks, which Microsoft insists heavily on.
Installing Windows 11 on a non-compatible PC is possible but not in all cases
As a reminder, when Windows 11 was released, Microsoft imposed a list of hardware characteristics that PCs that want to upgrade must meet. Among the requirements, the presence of a 64-bit processor with a frequency of at least 1 GHz and supporting POPCNT and SSE4.2 instructions, a minimum RAM of 4 GB and a TPM 2.0 security module.
It is this last point which particularly crystallized the frustrations of users, because many processors which proved powerful enough to run Windows 11 were devoid of this TPM 2.0 chip and would therefore find themselves deprived of the latest version of the OS . Since then, a multitude of techniques and tools have been developed, by users themselves, to get around this constraint and install Windows 11 on normally incompatible PCs.
Several easy-to-implement methods exist, such as using the Rufus tool, which offers a specific option to create a Windows 11 installation USB key that ignores the presence of a TPM 2.0 module, or the FlyBy11 script which allows the upgrade of a non-compatible PC to the 24H2 version of Windows 11. The practice is so widespread that Microsoft even provides a method for doing this on its page dedicated to installing Windows 11, at basis for modifying a registry key.
If solutions exist to bypass the presence of a TPM 2.0 chip, there is however no technique for installing Windows 11 on a PC equipped with a processor that does not support POPCNT and SSE4.2 instructions. For these machines, no alternative other than continuing with Windows 10 or migrating to a Linux distribution.
Not recommended installation and strong incentives not to do so
As the end of life of Windows 10 approaches, and faced with the surge of methods to circumvent its hardware requirements, Microsoft therefore seems to have given up, and is not seeking to block the installation of Windows 11 on non-compatible PCs, in anyway for the moment. However, the company strongly advises against this practice, and wanted to make this known in a perfectly clear and somewhat invasive manner.
First, on its web page dedicated to installing Windows 11 on a computer that does not meet the hardware requirements, Microsoft added a large paragraph in lieu of “disclaimer of liability” In this way, the company wishes to emphasize that it disclaims any responsibility in the event of a problem, hardware or software, occurring on a PC which would have forced the installation of Windows 11.
But above all, the company indicates on this same page that an irremovable watermark will be added to the desktop after installing Windows 11 on an incompatible computer. Along the same lines, a warning message will appear unexpectedly in Windows Settings, to regularly remind the user that their PC does not meet the minimum configuration requirements.
A somewhat aggressive and invasive practice, which Microsoft is unfortunately accustomed to in its communication and promotion of these products. Not sure that this attitude will have the desired effect on owners of a PC officially not compatible with Windows 11, but we cannot blame the company for not having warned its users of the risks involved.
Some good news, however: still on the same page, Microsoft now very clearly details the procedure to follow to downgrade to Windows 10 in the event of a problem. While most people who force-installed Windows 11 aren't experiencing any major issues with their PC, it's always good to have a convenient way to go back for those who may be experiencing difficulties.
