Teaching an old PC new tricks

7 min readMar 21, 2023

Running Windows 11 on vintage hardware

It’s well known that the offical hardware requirements of Windows 11 are extremely steep: 8th generation Intel Core CPU, TPM, UEFI Secure Boot, DirectX12/WDDM2.0 graphics, 4 GB RAM. Only very new hardware made in the last few years meets these requirements.

At the same time, it’s also well known that these requirements exist only as a check in the setup program. The actual Windows 11 operating system (21H2 as well as 22H2 and 23H2) works on almost any x64 PC. I am running Windows 11 version 23H2 (including Office 2021 LTSC and other applications) myself on PCs with each of the following configurations:

Year   Board                    CPU                RAM    GPU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007   Asus P5K                 Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   GeForce 7300 GS
2007   Asus P5K SE              Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   GeForce 7300 GS
2007   Asus P5K SE              Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   Radeon HD 5450
2007   Asus P5K SE              Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   GeForce 8400 GS
2008   Asus P5Q                 Core2 Duo E8400    2 GB   GeForce GT 710
2008   Asus P5Q                 Core2 Duo E8400    2 GB   GeForce GT 720
2008   Asus P5Q                 Core2 Duo E8400    2 GB   GeForce 8400 GS
2009   Asus P5QPL-AM            Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   GeForce 7300 GS
2010   Gigabyte G41M-Combo      Core2 Duo E6750    2 GB   G41 Express
2010   Asus P7H55-M PRO         Core i5-660        4 GB   HD Graphics
2010   Intel DH55TC             Core i5-660        4 GB   HD Graphics
2011   Asus P8H61-M             Core i3-2120       4 GB   HD Graphics 2000
2012   Dell Vostro 3560         Core i5-3230M      4 GB   HD Graphics 4000
2012   Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3   Athlon II X2 270   4 GB   Radeon 3000
2012   Asus P8H77-M LE          Core i3-3220       4 GB   HD Graphics 2500
2014   Asus B85M-E              Core i3-4150       4 GB   HD Graphics 4400
2015   Gigabyte H81M-D2W        Core i3-4170       4 GB   HD Graphics 4400

Of course, there are limitations and necessary workarounds. But ultimately, I was able to successfully deploy Windows 11 23H2 to any x64 PC I have ever tried up to now. Here are some things I learned along the way.

True Hardware requirements

CPU: There is no 32 bit version of Windows 11 available, so you need an x64 (AMD64, EM64T) compatible CPU. Any Intel Core CPU starting with the very first generation (Conroe) works for me. The Athlon II X2 270 is my only vintage AMD CPU and also works fine. It is said that you need at least a dual core CPU, which means for example a Pentium 4F wouldn’t work.

RAM: Windows 11 runs just fine with 2 GB RAM. On the idle desktop, Task Managers shows about 1 GB in use. I have not yet tried less then 2 GB.

In general, that’s it. For decent performance, I highly recommend to use a SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive. But I’d recommend that in any case, even if running Windows 7.

How to deploy

To deploy Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, you need to bypass the checks in the setup program. There are a number of ways to to this, for example:

If you install from a WDS server, use a Windows 10 boot.wim as the boot image to deploy a Windows 11 install.wim.
If you install from a USB thumb drive, put an autounattend.xml file with the following content in the root directory:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
 <settings pass="windowsPE">
  <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <UserData>
    <ProductKey>
     <Key></Key>
     <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
    </ProductKey>
    <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
   </UserData>
   <RunSynchronous>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
     <Order>1</Order>
     <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassCPUCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
     <Order>2</Order>
     <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassRAMCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
     <Order>3</Order>
     <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassSecureBootCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
     <Order>4</Order>
     <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassTPMCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
   </RunSynchronous>
  </component>
 </settings>
</unattend>

There are reports on the Internet that Windows 11 might show a watermark message on the desktop background if running on unsupported hardware. I have never seen this myself, but if you do, the following registry entry is supposed to remove the watermark:

reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\UnsupportedHardwareNotificationCache" /v SV2 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Limitations

Any feature in Windows 11 that relies on “modern” hardware or firmware your system doesn’t have will be unavailable. For example:

Secure Boot
Connected Standby
Virtualization based security
Automatic device encryption

This might decrease security and convenience. However, none of this has any application compatibility or functionality effects.

Performance

Of course, a PC from 2007 is slow compared to modern hardware. But it’s not as bad as you might expect and still acceptable for light office usage. The lowest configuration I am running (Core2 Duo E6750 with retrofitted SSD, 2 GB RAM and GeForce 7300 GS) takes about one minute from cold boot to the idle desktop and about five seconds for a cold start of Word 2021.

Updates and Upgrades

Up to now (January 2024) I have never experienced any problems with the monthly cumulative Windows Updates on unsupported hardware. The upgrade from Windows 11 22H2 to 23H was also possible by manually downloading and installing the enablement package KB 5027397. What doesn’t work is a “large” inplace upgrade through Windows update that requires migration to a new Windows installation, like the Upgrade to 22H2. At worst, this can be solved by a completely fresh install. I haven’t yet researched other methods.

Workarounds

I did notice a number of problems running Windows 11 with old hardware, but each of them was caused not by Windows 11 itself, but by a 3rd party driver. Fortunately, I also found workarounds for each of these problems:

GeForce 7300 GS

With the latest driver I know of (9.18.13.908), under Windows 11 and Windows 10 starting with version 2004 I noticed problems with transparency effects in the Windows user interface.

I solved this by disabling the transparency effects in the default user profile during setup, like this:

reg load HKLM\temp C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT
reg add "HKLM\temp\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize" /v EnableTransparency /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg unload HKLM\temp

This completely solved the problem for Windows 11. On Windows 10 version 2004 or higher, the restart/shutdown menu on the logon screen still opens invisible.

GeForce 8400 GS

With the latest driver I know of (21.21.13.4201), I noticed that under Windows 11 the screen content is not properly restored when resuming from screen power save mode.

I solved this by disabling screen power saving for PCs with GeForce 8400 GS graphics.

Intel HD Graphics (Core i5–660 integrated device)

There are hardware combinations (in my case Asus P7H55-M PRO mainboard with ViewSonic VX922 display), where the i5–660 integrated graphics turns off the DVI output as soon as the graphics driver is initialized after a reboot, i. e. after the BIOS messages and Windows boot logo have passed. I haven’t tried, but as it looks like a driver/hardware compatibility problem, I would expect the same problem under Windows 10.

I solved this by disabling and re-enabling the Intel HD Graphics adapter PNP device with the following PowerShell startup script, which re-enables DVI output:

$hdGraphics = Get-PnpDevice -InstanceId "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0042*"
if ($hdGraphics) {
    Disable-PnpDevice -InstanceId $hdGraphics.InstanceId -Confirm:$false
    Enable-PnpDevice -InstanceId $hdGraphics.InstanceId -Confirm:$false
}

Of course, you may also simply connect the display via VGA instead of DVI.

Intel HD Graphics 2500 (Core i3–3220 integrated device)

Under both Windows 10 and Windows 11, with the latest driver I know of (15.33.53.5161) I could not successfully initiate Miracast connections to a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter over an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260.

I solved this by first installing the older driver version 10.18.10.4252 and after that doing an inplace driver upgrade to 15.33.53.5161.

Atheros L1 Gigabyte Ethernet (Asus P5K SE onboard device)

Under Windows 11 and Windows 10 22H2, I noticed intermittent loss of connectivity.

I solved this by turning off the “Task Offload” feature in device manager for the Atheros L1 Ethernet interface.

Realtek 8112L Gigabyte Ethernet (Asus P7H55-M PRO onboard device)

Running an inplace upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 with an old rt640x64.sys driver installed resulted in a BSOD and upgrade rollback.

I solved this by upgrading the driver to version 10.53.1001.2021 before running the Windows 11 upgrade.

Conclusion

At least with Windows 11 21H2 up to 23H2, there is no need to throw away old x64 hardware. After you skip the hardware checks in the setup program, the OS runs totally fine and the performance feels about the same as it was with Windows Vista or 7.

If the PC still has a mechanical hard drive, it’s totally worthwile to add a 250 GB SSD boot drive for a mere 30 or 40 Euro to get a big perfomance boost, regardless of the OS you use.

The only problems arise from hardware where the 3rd party provider has stopped maintaining the driver many years ago. Fortunately, it’s often possible to find workarounds. Just try it!

Amendment: preview version of Windows 11 24H2

In February 2024 it has been noticed that new builds of the preview version of Windows 11 24H2 (expected release in the 2nd half of 2024) have changed the hardware requirements by requiring a CPU with the POPCNT instruction. In April 2024 this has been upped again to require the full SSE4.2 instruction set. This means, for Intel CPUs the first generation of Core-i or newer is required, for AMD CPUs the “Bulldozer”-Architecture or newer is required. In my list above, only the two Core2 Duo CPU models are older.

This would mean, you won’t be able to run a current version of Windows on CPUs without SSE4.2 from November 11th 2025, when servicing for Windows 11 23H2 stops. Windows 10 will go out of service even four weeks earlier on October 14th 2025.

Of course, it’s uncertain if the final release version of Windows 11 24H2 will include this change or not (or other hardware requirement changens).