Workarounds for Windows 11 on Incompatible Hardware

[GTP]

I'm curious whether option 1 in this article liked by @ThatPlace928 would work? It worked for me whereas the appraiserres.dll resizing to zero bytes didn't on my system (Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P).

Tried that, didn't work. The problem is as @Markverhyden stated that SSE4.2 is needed, But also I got a nag about SSE2.
It's an old laptop with a AMD Athlon chip.
It's running 23H2 great so I'll leave it at that.

 

[GTP]

One other "trick" that worked for me on a later laptop with a 3rd Gen i5 was to make a 23H2 bootable USB with Rufus, then replace the install.wim in the 23H2 sources folder with the esd.wim from 24H2.

It installed 24H2 no problems.
I checked specs with CPU-Z and it supports SSE4.2, so no nags.

 

[nlinecomputers]

We are currently looking into alternatives for all the computers we still have that won't run Windows 11 due to lacking TPM, etc. We just don't trust Microsoft allowing the older, non-compliant computers to continue to Run Windows 11 after October 2025. I have read where they are MAYBE offering a subscription service in order to continue to receive updates but we all know how that will go.

We are looking into maybe Chrome OS and a Linux derivative. Not having much luck but we just hate pitching all those computers out.

Our two stores serve many residential and many older users who just use basic items - emails, internet, Facebook, etc. Our business customers will need to upgrade.

Anyone have any thoughts?

For the amount of money you'd pay for a subscription service you could buy a low end, yet compatible, PC running Windows 11.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Also noted on the Wikipedia page for SSE4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE4

There appears, however, to be plenty of "ancient" hardware that supports SSE4.2

Yep.

 

[GTP]

...you could buy a low end, yet compatible, PC running Windows 11.

This statement prompts me to say that all this fooling around trying to get Windows installed on incompatible hardware is for my own edification. It's a fun game of "You just wait Microsoft."

There is no way I would do this for a client, for the exact reason stated above.
The hours spent are my own.

 

[Sky-Knight]

For the amount of money you'd pay for a subscription service you could buy a low end, yet compatible, PC running Windows 11.

They will provide that "subscription service" it's called Extended Service Updates. And like all ESU it will require an ENTERPRISE LICENSE for a current version of Windows desktop to be available WITH UPGRADE ASSURANCE, on top of a monthly service fee to support the platform. If you were to dive into this space, you'd be better off deploying Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, which will support 21H2 until 2027-01-12.

Windows 10 - release information

Learn release information for Windows 10 releases

learn.microsoft.com

But I expect exactly ZERO individuals to purchase the subscription only Windows 10 Enterprise license, and I expect even fewer of them will do the nuke and pave required to get into it as a result of Windows 10's support termination.

I'm with Microsoft, replace your crap... or get it off the Internet.

And the best part? Microsoft will sever communications with Windows 10 when it drops, those endpoints will no longer be able to access M365 services of any kind. There are rumors that Google will be doing the same, if that happens... LOL good luck not being able to use Google or Microsoft email services with your old turd.

You may have noticed but we're at war here, and machines that lack the feature demanded by Microsoft are INDEFENSIBLE TODAY. The younger units are hard enought to keep safe online. UPGRADE YOUR CRAP! China and Russia give us zero choices in the matter.

I feel sorry for those on the 7th generation iSeries, those units are 90% of what we need but sadly the CPUs are missing critical architectural functionality Microsoft is leaning into HARD. That's why they aren't supported, despite their youth. As much as I'd love to see this change, I know why it cannot. I also agree with Microsoft's assessment. Kaby Lake was terminated October 9th of 2020, so the youngest of these deveices will be 5 years old at the point of replacement. That is the normal replacement cycle for a desktop, a longer than normal replacement cycle for a laptop. I know we've all gotten used to these ten year runs... but that cannot always happen. It used to be that you'd expect to replace a machine every 3 years. It's apparent those complaining about the early demise of the 7th generation platform weren't around in the 90s.

Meanwhile... these exist: https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLS7ZHP/

$180 on Amazon for a tiny, fist sized, quad core office duty desktop with a Windows 11 Pro license INCLUDED.

Even the cheapest, most broke people can afford that. Get them new rigs people... it's not hard.

P.S. The branding shift to Windows 11 solved a HUGE problem that Windows 10 had... How do we plan for and replace endpoints that cannot be updated to the next feature release? Windows 11 provided a much needed line in the sand in that regard, and while everyone is grumpy about it, I can't help but think finding out with 6 months to spare that your rig has left support on Windows 10 would have been far worse...

(6 month delay on deploying the feature release against 1 year of support for any given release, left us with only 6 months to replace a unit that couldn't accept that new release!)

Now we're on an annual update cadence, releases are supported for 2 years. So if you cannot upgrade, you've got 18 months to replace your rig, assuming the same 6 month delay. This configuration is much more reasonable when it comes to managing the lifecycle of endpoints.

 

[fincoder]

Meanwhile... these exist: https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Desktop-Computer-Support-Ethernet/dp/B0BVLS7ZHP/

$180 on Amazon for a tiny, fist sized, quad core office duty desktop with a Windows 11 Pro license INCLUDED.

They're a great price for their performance, and very useful. But the OS license is a bit suspicious. With these chinese NUC-style mini PCs, they include an activated OS but no OEM product key sticker, no license embedded in the BIOS, and no retail box with key. To activate a reinstalled OS, apparently the end user must email the manufacturer support (e.g. Beelink) and they send a key. I believe sometimes the key doesn't work and they send another! Sounds familiar...

That weird OS license arrangement is why I don't sell those cheap mini PCs to customers.

 

[sapphirescales]

That weird OS license arrangement is why I don't sell those cheap mini PCs to customers.

Not to mention the fact that it will probably blow up in your face in 3 months because they use the cheapest quality garbage components. I bet the power supply that comes with it is a dangerous fire hazard and the manufacturer doesn't have the right to use the UL label and other certification labels because it's never been tested as safe because they know it would fail. Stay far, FAR away from Chinese companies. There's a HUGE difference between something a product purchased from a US company that was made in China and buying from a Chinese company. The difference is liability and the ability to sue if they sell you something dangerous/low quality.

 

[Metanis]

I've resold a number of Beelink units and have not experienced a single failure or callback. I'm actually writing this on a competing Minisforum unit which uses the same form factor. I like Beelink's support better than Minis though.

And re: the Windows license, it's saved in their Microsoft account right? (I know that's half facetious but it's been successful for me each time I've reinstalled Windows lately!)

 

[Sky-Knight]

Oh noes... my $180 cheap box died! WHATEVER WILL I DO!!

Oh... wait... I forgot... they were deployed into an M365 tenant with Intune management and curated user experiences enforced that demand all data be stored in M365.

Rob my magic box died what do I do? Grab unit XX from the shelf, login, and get on with your day... Thanks Rob!

At $200 the things can fail all they want, I don't care. I can buy 3 of these for every 1 warranted Dell "proper" desktop.

These items utterly demolish the need for refurbs... full stop.

I need to reinstall Windows? Ok... slap in the Windows media, tell it Pro, and tell it I don't have a key BOOOM machine online. It doesn't reactivate? Throw it away? Contact support? Meh... again who cares it's $200! But muh product key! News flash, OEM Windows from actual vendors doesn't use them anymore, hasn't in quite some time. Again, update your processeses, learn, adapt, thrive!

@fincoder the only thing I actually worry about? The lack of BIOS updates... EFIs are vulnerable, and emailing them for a BIOS update is backward. I've worked with this sector for ages, so I know how they think and work... and I know the supply chain support isn't there. But again, for <$200 it's too cheap to argue. For customers that have compliance requirements, they get Intel branded NUCs instead, vastly better supported, but also substantially more expensive.

 

[sapphirescales]

Oh noes... my $180 cheap box died! WHATEVER WILL I DO!!

Presumably you're not selling them for what they cost you for no profit. There's no way in heck I'd sell something like this for $400+ to one of my customers.

News flash, OEM Windows from actual vendors doesn't use them anymore, hasn't in quite some time.

Completely wrong. Just because they don't print them on the outside of the case anymore doesn't mean your computer doesn't come with a product key. You can view the product key of any OEM machine using a tool like RW-Everything. It's slipstreamed into the firmware on the motherboard.

These items utterly demolish the need for refurbs... full stop.

I'd take a high quality refurbished business class computer over some no-name Chinese company that will disappear after they get X number of negative reviews any day.

 

[NviGate Systems]

I'd take a high quality refurbished business class computer over some no-name Chinese company that will disappear after they get X number of negative reviews any day.

Same.

 

[britechguy]

And isn't it wonderful that the marketplace currently supports choices that each of us can be comfortable with?!

That something isn't your personal preference (generic you) doesn't make it wrong, just different. And each of us has our own histories and tolerance for risk.

 

[Rigo]

it's saved in their Microsoft account right?

It will tell you that you've reached your activations limit and need to get another product key.
When initially activating over the phone it tells you to save the activation code for reuse just in case but I haven't had the opportunity to test that yet.
These grey market keys are not transferrable to another installation even on the same machine even though they're registered in the MS account.

 

[Markverhyden]

another installation even on the same machine even though they're registered in the MS account.

It's been a few years but I remember many years ago MS sold one time use licenses for the OS and Office. I found this out from doing nuke and paves and then trying to register the installs. The prominent feature was the legitimate low prices for the binaries.

 

[britechguy]

Latest report regarding the machine I have that sports an AMD A12-9700P APU: No dice on updating to Win11 v24H2.

I first tried using the Windows 11 Installation Assistant, just so I could say I had, and it pretty much barfs semi-silently and instantly.

I then tried using the v24H2 ISO burned to bootable media by Rufus with all of the things it can neuter (other than Microsoft account, since I'm using one) selected, and that dies early on in the process when the installer throws up a message saying that the processor is not supported.




I knew that the screws would be sequentially tightening and just wondered when it would be beyond worth even experimenting anymore with this. I think I may have reached that point unless the folks at Rufus somehow neuter the check for supported processor, too. Since I wasn't told a new version of Rufus was available, I have to believe the one I'm using is still the latest. It always nags me on startup if a newer version is available.

 

[Metanis]

Latest report regarding the machine I have that sports an AMD A12-9700P APU: No dice on updating to Win11 v24H2.

Every AMD A series system I ever worked on was DOG slow. I never worked with an A12 though. But the A6, A8, and A10s were horrible.

 

[britechguy]

Every AMD A series system I ever worked on was DOG slow.

I guess it really depends on what you're used to and what you're expecting. When I bought that system many moons ago, it was a major improvement over what I had, and that was with a HDD and upgraded to Windows 10.

For basic emailing, web browsing, and office suite use, the A10 and A12 series were decent. They were never meant to be "best in class" but solid mid-range, and at the times of their respective releases, they pretty much were.

The A12 certainly feels slow now, as I'm accustomed to an i5-12th gen. But that's comparing apples and oranges. It's not the same class of processor to begin with.

 

[fincoder]

They were never meant to be "best in class" but solid mid-range

But because they were at the top of AMD's 15W APU range and were quad core, laptops containing them were over-priced for that performance. At the time, 15W i5 CPUs were still dual core so laptops with quad core AMD APUs were sold as high performance and priced the same or higher than the Intel dual core ones. They were barely sufficient in performance when new, and not good value. Much lower performance per core:

AMD A12-9700P vs Intel i5-7200U [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

 

[NviGate Systems]

The realistic boundaries of a product are always exaggerated no matter the industry.

AMD C-50, E1, E2 were thin client SKU yet they showed up in consumer crap.

BlackBerry Curve devices were not even designed for the N.American market, they were designed as low cost smartphones for the African market but when US and Canadian carriers saw how cheap they were, they capitalized on them for profit. (As told to me by a senior BlackBerry official during an Expo when I asked why the Curve was such a horrible piece of garbage)

Even Intel suffers from this. True, Microsoft enables them, but Microsoft has to give some ground to the OEM, they can't be mean all the time, so every now and then they look the other way.