Still no Windows 11 minimum requirements HELP

thekarter104 · Apr 22, 2024

Hello.

I did a dangerous BIOS update to enable TPM 2.0 so I can install Windows 11. Checked secure boot and it says Enabled, though it's greyed out.

So I went ahead and my PC still told me it doesn't meet the requirements...
So I downloaded a program WhyNotWin11.

Here are the results I post in red that doesn't meet the requirements:

Boot type: Legacy
Disk Partitioning: MBR
Secure Boot: Disabled.

What the actual F????
How can secure boot be disabled while it says ENABLED in the BIOS and how to fix the other 2?

I hope anyone can help. I'm totally lost now...

RedColoredStars · Apr 22, 2024

thekarter104 said:
Hello.

I did a dangerous BIOS update to enable TPM 2.0 so I can install Windows 11. Checked secure boot and it says Enabled, though it's greyed out.

So I went ahead and my PC still told me it doesn't meet the requirements...
So I downloaded a program WhyNotWin11.

Here are the results I post in red that doesn't meet the requirements:

Boot type: Legacy
Disk Partitioning: MBR
Secure Boot: Disabled.

What the actual F????
How can secure boot be disabled while it says ENABLED in the BIOS and how to fix the other 2?

I hope anyone can help. I'm totally lost now...

You don't even need to do some kind of BIOS update to be able to install Win 11 on unsupported hardware. Just create a bootable USB stick with Rufus using the Win 11 iso. When you click on start a box will pop up. Just check the boxes for disabling the check for Secure Boot, TPM, etc. When it finishes, just boot from the usb stick and install.

https://rufus.ie/en/

ILuvGames · Apr 22, 2024

thekarter104 said:
Hello.

I did a dangerous BIOS update to enable TPM 2.0 so I can install Windows 11. Checked secure boot and it says Enabled, though it's greyed out.

So I went ahead and my PC still told me it doesn't meet the requirements...
So I downloaded a program WhyNotWin11.

Here are the results I post in red that doesn't meet the requirements:

Boot type: Legacy
Disk Partitioning: MBR
Secure Boot: Disabled.

What the actual F????
How can secure boot be disabled while it says ENABLED in the BIOS and how to fix the other 2?

I hope anyone can help. I'm totally lost now...

Although there might be some way to get it to work from what i've read, MBR isn't really suitable for using Secure Boot. In the BIOS settings, is there a change mode option for TPM? Like a user mode option? As we don't know what motherboard you have it's harder to troubleshoot. If you want to convert the drive from MBR to GPT, it's not difficult. You can run this command prompt from the windows recovery environment and it should tell you if the drive can be converted to GPT.

mbr2gpt /validate

If the validation didn't fail, you can use mbr2gpt /convert to convert it to GPT. Be careful at this point that you have the right disk selected if you have multiple drives and partitions. To check this type diskpart and press enter, then list disk and press enter again. If the system disk is disk 0 then you can then try using mbr2gpt /allowFullOS /disk:0 /validate to try the validation process again. If it still fails then i'm sure someone else can help you more. It may be that it still won't work after converting to GPT.

thekarter104 · Apr 22, 2024

RedColoredStars said:
You don't even need to do some kind of BIOS update to be able to install Win 11 on unsupported hardware. Just create a bootable USB stick with Rufus using the Win 11 iso. When you click on start a box will pop up. Just check the boxes for disabling the check for Secure Boot, TPM, etc. When it finishes, just boot from the usb stick and install.

https://rufus.ie/en/

I actually know that!
The problem is Microsoft tries to combat this. In the upcoming 24H1, Microsoft did a lot of things to not be able to customize stuff and I'm afraid it can also happen with unsupported hardware. My processor is supported though.

So I kinda want to try the official way.

RedColoredStars · Apr 23, 2024

thekarter104 said:
I actually know that!
The problem is Microsoft tries to combat this. In the upcoming 24H1, Microsoft did a lot of things to not be able to customize stuff and I'm afraid it can also happen with unsupported hardware. My processor is supported though.

So I kinda want to try the official way.

No they did not do a lot of things to not be able to customize stuff in the upcoming 24H1. I dual boot 23H2 and 24H1. My processer is unsupported, no secure boot, and no tpm. Works fine. You're being overly paranoid. Just use Rufus.

thekarter104 · Apr 23, 2024

RedColoredStars said:
No they did not do a lot of things to not be able to customize stuff in the upcoming 24H1. I dual boot 23H2 and 24H1. My processer is unsupported, no secure boot, and no tpm. Works fine. You're being overly paranoid. Just use Rufus.

Yes, maybe I'm overly paranoid and I know why. Britech09 uploaded videos about Microsoft blocking stuff on 24H2.
So that's where my paranoid is coming from.

Anyways, I'll wait until Windows 10 is completely dead and then I'll see and ofcourse using Rufus. It doesn't hurt to try after support.

SapphireExile · Apr 23, 2024

1. Secure boot requires MOK enrollment. If you installed Windows with secure boot off, turning it on isn't going to suddenly make it work.
2. There is zero evidence that Microsoft changes *anything* if running on "unsupported hardware".
3. You can install W11 just by setting a single registry key to ignore hardware requirements.
4. If you don't know the difference between MBR and GPT to begin with, then really it just sounds like you're repeating buzz words and fear mongering instead of actually knowing what you're talking about.

If you're that concerned, use Tiny11 or roll your own.

The Real Jdbye · Apr 23, 2024

thekarter104 said:
Hello.

I did a dangerous BIOS update to enable TPM 2.0 so I can install Windows 11. Checked secure boot and it says Enabled, though it's greyed out.

So I went ahead and my PC still told me it doesn't meet the requirements...
So I downloaded a program WhyNotWin11.

Here are the results I post in red that doesn't meet the requirements:

Boot type: Legacy
Disk Partitioning: MBR
Secure Boot: Disabled.

What the actual F????
How can secure boot be disabled while it says ENABLED in the BIOS and how to fix the other 2?

I hope anyone can help. I'm totally lost now...

Your drive is formatted for legacy BIOS boot, not UEFI boot.
MBR can be converted to GPT, but in addition to that, you need a UEFI boot partition containing the appropriate files.
Windows has a built in tool that takes care of both of these things: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ion-from/aa8c2de3-460b-4a8c-b30b-641405f800d7

Post automatically merged: Apr 23, 2024

SapphireExile said:
1. Secure boot requires MOK enrollment. If you installed Windows with secure boot off, turning it on isn't going to suddenly make it work.

As far as I know this is something you have to do manually where it's required, not something a program can do for you, at least it's been the case with Ventoy and Linux. I sure never had to do that when installing Windows.
Pretty sure the certificate for Windows is already in the UEFI firmware by default.
Early on, Windows was the only OS that could boot with Secure Boot, there was no such thing as enrollment. The Secure Boot option in the BIOS wasn't on or off, it was literally "Windows" or "Others". Until Ubuntu managed to get their GRUB signed with the same certificate, which allowed it to work with Secure Boot set to "Windows". And people piggybacked off that version of GRUB to boot other distros with Secure Boot enabled.

SapphireExile · Apr 25, 2024

The Real Jdbye said:
Your drive is formatted for legacy BIOS boot, not UEFI boot.
MBR can be converted to GPT, but in addition to that, you need a UEFI boot partition containing the appropriate files.
Windows has a built in tool that takes care of both of these things: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ion-from/aa8c2de3-460b-4a8c-b30b-641405f800d7

Post automatically merged: Apr 23, 2024

As far as I know this is something you have to do manually where it's required, not something a program can do for you, at least it's been the case with Ventoy and Linux. I sure never had to do that when installing Windows.
Pretty sure the certificate for Windows is already in the UEFI firmware by default.
Early on, Windows was the only OS that could boot with Secure Boot, there was no such thing as enrollment. The Secure Boot option in the BIOS wasn't on or off, it was literally "Windows" or "Others". Until Ubuntu managed to get their GRUB signed with the same certificate, which allowed it to work with Secure Boot set to "Windows". And people piggybacked off that version of GRUB to boot other distros with Secure Boot enabled.

Windows does it for you, yes, but if it was ever installed *without* secure boot being enabled, and thus Windows enrolling itself in the key store, you can not convert it to a secure boot platform after the fact. Has to be reinstalled.

You also can *not* convert a live MBR install to GPT. They use entirely different layouts and are wholly incompatible with each other. Again, a reinstall is necessary.

raging_chaos · Apr 25, 2024

thekarter104 said:
The problem is Microsoft tries to combat this. In the upcoming 24H1, Microsoft did a lot of things to not be able to customize stuff and I'm afraid it can also happen with unsupported hardware. My processor is supported though.

So I kinda want to try the official way.

I believe the LTSC version of WIn 11 skips the check entirely, you might want to try that version.

The Real Jdbye · Apr 25, 2024

SapphireExile said:
Windows does it for you, yes, but if it was ever installed *without* secure boot being enabled, and thus Windows enrolling itself in the key store, you can not convert it to a secure boot platform after the fact. Has to be reinstalled.

You also can *not* convert a live MBR install to GPT. They use entirely different layouts and are wholly incompatible with each other. Again, a reinstall is necessary.

I don't think you comprehend anything I said.

Again, it is as far as I know not possible for software to automatically enroll keys for you. If any software could just enroll keys without user consent then Secure Boot wouldn't be very secure, any malicious piece of software would be able to just replace the .efi file on the EFI system partition (which isn't protected) and then enroll the malware author's keys and the boot process would be hijacked. The very thing Secure Boot is meant to protect against. No piece of software is able to do this, they make you manually navigate to the correct file to enroll through that stupid UEFI screen. That includes both Ventoy and Linux distros. Do you think if there was a way for software to automatically enroll keys that users would be required to jump through hoops like that?

That is literally what the mbr2gpt tool is for. Direct from the Microsoft page (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt)
You can use MBR2GPT to:

Convert any attached MBR-formatted system disk to the GPT partition format. You can't use the tool to convert non-system disks from MBR to GPT.

Footnote: I've personally converted a legacy boot Windows 10 install (that was originally upgraded from Windows 7) in a situation that was much the same as OP's,
I can confirm it's not difficult to do. I don't remember if I used mbr2gpt, but it doesn't matter.
There are only two requirements for UEFI boot, a drive formatted as GPT, and a FAT partition or EFI system partition (which is just FAT with a special identifier) containing at least one boot*.efi file.
Those are the two changes that need to be made, and like I said, mbr2gpt takes care of both of them.

Slightly different layouts, yes, but it's not black magic, it can quite easily be modified. The partition layout just needs to be changed a little to make room for the EFI system partition. The old MBR partition table is removed (optionally), and the new GPT one is written, they can also coexist without issues as they aren't written to the same location on the drive. Even if they did have entirely different layouts, you can rearrange, resize, clone and delete any partition on the drive you would like using any decent partition manager, nothing about the drive layout is fixed in place.

thekarter104 · Apr 25, 2024

Hello everyone.
Good news, the conversion is successful using mbr2gpt.exe in the recovery menu. Nothing is lost and now Windows Update says my device is now compatible. This is what helped me:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ion-from/aa8c2de3-460b-4a8c-b30b-641405f800d7

Thanks!

Still no Windows 11 minimum requirements HELP

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