Until recently, Microsoft had a certain tolerance for users who had bypassed its restrictions to install Windows 11 on their machine whose configuration did not meet its specifications. As proof, the American company even offered on a page of its online support, instructions for bypassing the system requirements to install its operating system on officially unsupported machines. But this time now seems to be over. Microsoft has in fact just taken several measures to dissuade you from doing so.
Microsoft removes bypass instructions from its support pages
As our colleagues at Neowin point out, when the first version of Windows 11, version 21H2, was released, Microsoft had posted instructions online on its support pages allowing users to bypass the installation restrictions. Thanks to these, it was therefore possible to carry out a proper upgrade, even if the machine's processor was not supported, and even if the PC did not have TPM 2.0.
This solution proposed by Microsoft consisted of modifying a registry key to bypass the checks of the processor and the presence of the TPM 2.0 module. Here it is, as it was displayed on the Microsoft website a few months ago:
This page, which is still accessible from the Wayback Machine has been discreetly modified by Microsoft.
In its new version, the page has been purged of the lines explaining how to bypass Windows 11 installation restrictions.
According to the Wayback Machine, Microsoft made these changes just after the deployment of Windows 11 24H2. And this is not very surprising, since Microsoft now suggests that Windows 10 users whose machine does not meet the specifications of Windows 11 should buy a new PC.
Microsoft Defender blocks bypass applications
To finally prevent you from bypassing Windows 11 installation restrictions, Microsoft has made a rather radical decision. From now on, Microsoft Defender, the antivirus built into Windows, automatically blocks certain applications that allow you to bypass Microsoft's restrictions to install Windows 11 on an incompatible PC. This is the case, for example, of FlyBy11 which is now identified as a potential threat by Microsoft's antivirus. The developer of the application also mentions this in the changelog of the latest update of its tool:
Unfortunately for Microsoft, FlyBy11 is not the only utility that allows you to bypass its restrictions. Alternatives, tested and approved, exist, such as the excellent Rufus thanks to which you can create a bootable installation USB key to install Windows 11 24H2 on a non-compatible PC.
Source: Neowin
0 Comments