How to Install Windows 11 without Secure Boot
By: Kawhi Dumingz
Tags: Windows, Windows 11

Secure Boot is mandatory for installing Windows 11 on a PC according to the minimal hardware requirements provided by Microsoft.

If you try to install Windows 11 on a PC without Secure Boot, you’ll get a pop-up box that says This PC can’t run Windows 11 because Secure Boot is not supported.

Afraid not, we have listed a couple of ways to help you install Windows 11 on a PC without Secure Boot.

Registry Hack

This method requires you to tap into the power of Windows Registry. However, you need to be careful and follow all the instructions shared in this tutorial. Otherwise, you might end up having to reinstall Windows 11 all over again and losing all your data in the process.

1. Get the preview build ISO of Windows 11 and burn it to USB drive with UUByte ISO Editor. This will create a bootable Windows 11 install media.

2. Reboot your PC and install Windows 11. This would bring up the pop-up box we discussed above, but don’t worry, we are doing this on purpose

3. When that pop-up box comes up on your screen, press Shift and F10 on your keyboard. This would open a Command Prompt windows on this screen.

4. In the Command Prompt windows, type the below command to open the Windows 10 Registry Editor

regedit

5. Once inside the Registry Editor and press Enter, type the following in the address bar to go over to that key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup

6. Here, notice the Setup key on the left pane, right click on it and choose New, then select Key.

7. This will create a new Key (this should look like a folder on the left), you need to name it LabConfig. Remember the cases of the letters, and also remember that it’s a single word

8. In a similar way, right click on LabConfig and choose New, then choose DWORD (32-bit) Value.

9. This should create a new entry on the right, name it BypassTPMCheck and change its value to 1.

10. In same fashion, create another DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it BypassSecureBootCheck, then change its value to 1.

11. X out of the Registry Editor and Command Prompt window, this should take you back to the installation window.

12. On the installation window, press the Back button and proceed normally. This time you will not get the error message any more.

Modify Installation Media

To install Windows 11 on your PC, you need the ISO file for it. In this method, we will modify the ISO to ensure that it does not check for Secure Boot while installing Windows 11 on your PC.

Click on the Windows 11 ISO file with the right mouse button, and choose Mount.

2. This will ensure that you are able to view all the files inside that ISO file like regular files and folders. Go inside the main folder, then go inside the sources folder and look for the file named install.wim.

3. Once you find install.wim, copy it and paste it on your Desktop.

4. Next, insert the Windows 10 (yes, Windows 10 and not Windows 11) bootable USB drive in the same PC.

5. Go to the sources folder inside the Windows 10 bootable USB, and paste the install.wim file that you had copied from the Windows 11 ISO. This will ask you whether you want to replace a file present in that folder with the same name, ensure that you replace it and not rename it.

6. Now, close everything and boot your PC using this Windows 10 bootable USB. This should now give you the option to install Windows 11 without Secure Boot.

Replace appraiserres.dll

This is yet another way to bypass Secure Boot while installing Windows 11 on your PC. This is somewhat similar to the above method for install.wim, except, this involves another file. Read on.

1. Click on the Windows 11 ISO file with the right mouse button and press Mount.

2. Go inside the Windows 11 ISO file like a regular folder, select everything, and copy them.

3. Create a new folder on your PC, name it Windows 11. Paste all the items that you have copied from the Windows 11 ISO file.

4. Plug in the Windows 10 (again, this time it is Windows 10 and not Windows 11. You need to follow this carefully) bootable USB, go inside the sources folder and find the file named appraiserres.dll.

5. Once you found the file, copy it, go back to the Windows 11 folder you just created, and paste this file inside the sources folder in the Windows 11 folder. Remember, you are copying the appraiserres.dll file from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

6. This should ask you whether you want to replace the file with the same name, please choose to replace and not rename.

7. Now close everything, and find the setup.exe file inside the main folder of the Windows 11 folder.

8. Once you have found setup.exe, double click on it to start the setup process while bypassing Secure Boot.

These processes are tried and tested, so you should be able to install Windows 11 without Secure Boot on unsupported PC using one of the above tricks. However, you should be the best judge of the performance of Windows 11 on an unsupported PC.