Running Windows 11 on old computer -buying advice sought

HPMan

Hi all,

I would like to try Windows 11 and to buy an old laptop / tpwer in order to test.

What might be a sensible system specs to give a reasonable usability?

How do I get a copy of Windows 11 and licence, how to activate it on an old system and if it turns out the system used is not good enough can that copy of Windows 11 be moved legally and how onto a newer better suited system?

Regards all

nelly17

Windows 11 requires Secure boot which a lot of older machines wont have here is the list of requirements.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications?r=1

There is also a compatability check tool

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11#pchealthcheck

If you have a genuine copy of windows 10 - you can sign up for the Windows Insider Programme there is a preview build available through it and it is a preview build so run it at your own risk.

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2022/05/05/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-22616/

zenith

Hi, have done this on two elderly machines - licencing requirements are quite relaxed and you can boot from USB using an install that avoids some of the minimum requirements (though they assert that these will not get patched forever).

Both machines are 7+ years old... so you have a high prospect of success whatever you chooose.

How to Bypass Windows 11 Minimum Installation Requirements (makeuseof.com)

Capt'n Midnight

You could also try a virtual machine https://www.virtualbox.org

https://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/post/install-microsoft-windows-11-on-virtualbox

Make sure you have virtualisation turned on in the BIOS , only assign one CPU per core to the virtual machine because hyperthreading doesn't carry through.

VM's mean you can take snapshots so you can rollback to the last one instead of a complete rebuild.

HPMan

I have an Update - acquired dad's old Samsung NP300E5A intel i3 laptop from 2011 originally Win 7 then Win10, used the dodge on the web for Win11 install and works well - got a £33 Kingston SSD for it and boots up basically instantly. Not much on it to be fair but so far so good.

I have 10 & 11 installed on separate SSDs on my pc. I run virtual Linux machines, which I found didn’t run stably on 11 but run splendidly on 10. Must try another install on 11 & troubleshoot.