Install Windows 11 on ANY Windows 10 PC with NO data loss!

0:00 A lot of you out there may still be using Windows 10. And many of you may be perfectly happy with it, and some of you may want to upgrade to Windows 11, but even though your computer obviously would support it, Microsoft says it won't let you. Now, if you watched one of my recent videos, I explained to you a little while back that Microsoft was ending support for Windows 10 in about 6 months. Well, now it's down to about 4 months. And there are ways to get around it by downloading installers or editing the registry and doing all kinds of stuff that a lot of you may find a little too much. Well, in today's video, I'm going to show you how you can upgrade your Windows 10 computer to Windows 11, even if it's not supported. The best part is it's 100% free. It's a couple clicks, super easy to do, and even better than the best part is you

0:45 can do it without losing any of your data. I'm super excited to share this with you. Let's get into it. Hey guys, my name is Scott Merrill. I've been in IT for about 35 years now. And on this channel, we do all kinds of Windows tips, tricks, reviews, troubleshooting, anything Windows related, I got you covered. In addition to that, one of the services that I offer is a free PC recommendation service. There is a link in the description below. If you're looking for a new computer and you don't know what to get, so click on that link, fill out that form. It's going to email me. I'm going to look through it. I'm going to send you my recommendation to make sure that you don't overspend when buying a new computer. 100% free. I'm happy to do it. One more quick thing I want to mention. I absolutely love helping people with recommendations, but understand that I'm going to answer them in the order of urgency. So, if I get two emails at the same time and one

1:31 person needs a computer in the next few days and the next one needs it in a month, I'm going to answer the one that needs it in a few days first. So, if you don't hear from me right away, it's probably because you said you need it a month from now. Be patient. I will get to all of them. This is my trusty spare computer. Her name's Linda. Now, like a lot of you, it's got Windows 10. Runs great, but unfortunately, it does not meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11. In today's video, I'm going to show you exactly how I go through step by step to get this machine on Windows 11, even though it's unsupported, and we're going to do it without losing a bit of data. It's super easy. Just follow my steps all the way through, and you'll have a working Windows 11 machine in no time. Now, obviously, if you have a Windows 10 machine that is eligible for a free upgrade, you'll know that because when

2:17 you go into Windows updates, you'll see that option there to go ahead and download Windows 11. You may not see that. And you'll see a link over here to check hardware requirements. What that is is a pointer to a program called PC Health Check. Now, I've already downloaded it, but I'm going to show you that this machine is in fact not eligible for the free upgrade. So once I get this PC health check app, I'm just going to click on check now and it's going to look and it's going to say as you can see this machine has the TPM requirements for security but unfortunately the processor isn't qualified. So Microsoft says no way. Now if I went to go download a Windows installer, Windows 11 would not install because the requirements for the Microsoft installation will go and check

3:03 and if it doesn't meet those requirements, you're stuck. but not anymore. Now, even though I'm telling you that you can do what's basically called an in place upgrade using this method, it's still important that you go ahead and back up your data. If you have anything on this computer that you care about, go ahead and back it up. And why is that? Well, yes, even though you're not going to lose anything, it's a Microsoft thing. So, it's entirely possible that the update could fail and then your machine could be stuck between Windows 10 and Windows 11. If you have your data backed up, no big deal. You can just go back and try it again. But, it's always better to be safe than sorry. So, if you haven't backed up, go ahead and do that now. Hopefully, you have a Windows activated system. But if not, you may want to consider buying a generic product key that's going to work

3:49 for your computer to fully activate it. Thanks to today's sponsor, you can do that. Have you found yourself stuck with a non-working or possibly pirated copy of Windows? Well, thanks to today's sponsor, Keysfan, you can be up and running again and 100% legal in about 10 minutes. An unactivated copy of Windows prevents you from personalizing your computer. And if you want to upgrade your Windows 10 to Windows 11 now or down the road, you're going to need an authentic product key to do that. Use code AYCG-52 to get 52% off a Windows 11 license. The purchase process could not be simpler. Simply search for the version of Windows or Office that you're looking for. Add it to your cart. Make sure you apply your coupon code and within 10 minutes, you'll have an email sent to you with a new product code. Go to your email and select the product key. Go to Windows activation settings.

4:36 Type or paste your product key. Click next, then activate, and you're done. Now, I know a lot of you are going to have questions about this whole process. If you watch the video all the way through, I've already come up with a lot of potential questions that you may want to know. So stick around to the end and I will try to address those. And if I missed any, make sure you leave them in the comments. So what you're going to do is go to your favorite web browser and then just type fly by1 and then you'll see the link right here for fly by11 GitHub. Go ahead and click on that and then it's going to take you to this page right here. You'll see built by11. That's the link you want. Let me get my big head out of the way. On this page, you're going to scroll down to where you see releases and just click on fly by 11. The version may be a

5:23 little different. And if the link changes at any point, I will make sure that I update the description. So, click right here. And then you're going to want to scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says flyby1.zip and just click on that. Just go ahead and save that to your download folder. So once it's downloaded, just go ahead and click on it. And then go ahead and extract the contents of that into a new folder. Okay. So now we have the contents extracted. We don't need that website anymore. You're going to see a file called Fly by 11 right down here at the bottom. Just double click it. Go ahead and select run. If you get a virus notification, go ahead and click on that and just restore it. The file is safe. And then you'll be able to go back here to your Fly by 111. You should see

6:09 an icon right here and then just simply doubleclick it. Again, Microsoft might try to tell you that it's malicious. Just click more info and then tell it run. Anyway, at this point, you can go ahead and close this Explorer window. Now, this point right here is kind of important. You'll see these little two check boxes. Now, when the PC health check app runs, it looks for your TPM and secure boot processors and all that to make sure it's on the compatibility list. This just does some very basic checks to make sure that your machine actually can really run Windows 11. But if you have a red X here or two red X's, maybe you shouldn't upgrade this machine. But I'll address that later at the end. So, once you've got this done,

6:55 all you have to do is click start upgrade now at the bottom. Now you're going to get several options here. First thing we need to do is download the Windows installer. Now you can click this top link and go directly to the Microsoft website. But there's also a convenient option here for you to just click download via phto. If you click on that, it's going to open a Windows PowerShell, which is perfectly fine. Then it's going to bring up this downloader right here. Now, obviously, if you want Windows 11, that's the option you want to select. So just leave that on 11 and click continue. Now, the next option you're going to see right here is the latest version of Windows 11, which is 24H2. There may be potential upgrades in the future. I'll get to that at the end of the video. For now, just go ahead and click continue. You should just see one option here, which is the Windows 11

7:40 Home, Pro, and Educational. That's fine. Just click continue. It's going to take a few seconds and then it's going to bring up the language. Now, this is very important. If you are in the United States, most of you are going to have the English United States version. You can see here it defaults to the English international. Now, if you use this international version, you're not going to be able to keep all your files and settings. So, what you want to do if you're in the United States, you want to click this box and select English United States or if you're outside the country, whatever your version, whatever your language version is for your existing Windows. Once you've got that selected, click continue. Now, the next step that's going to come up is going to ask you for the architecture. Most consumer users are going to have x64, which means you either have an Intel or AMD

8:27 processor. If you have an ARM processor, it's going to generally be for tablets or older computers. Um, just go ahead and select x64. If it doesn't work for some reason, obviously you don't have the right one, but most of you are going to have x64. So, just go ahead and click download. And then it's going to bring up a browser window. You're not going to see any website. What you will see is this Win11 ISO file right here. Just go ahead and save it to your downloads folder. Click save. And you can see it's going to start downloading in the background. Now, depending on your internet speed, it could take a few minutes. Just be patient and wait. It's about a 3 gig file. Okay. So, that took a little bit longer than expected cuz the file is actually over 5 GB, not 3 GB. But anyway, now that we have that downloaded, we can just minimize that screen. On the fly by 11 program, we're

9:13 going to go click this more options and we're going to select from computer. What we're doing is telling it to go find that ISO file that we just downloaded so we can create the virtual installer. So, we're going to go back to downloads or wherever you downloaded that ISO file. And there it is right here. We're going to select that and we're just going to click okay. Now, it's going to take a couple seconds to read that ISO file. And you're going to get another PowerShell warning like this. You just click yes. Now, you're going to get a window that pops up saying Windows installation can now proceed. So you can just click okay there. And then it's going to pop up another window behind this. You can close the Fly by 11 screen at this point. Now you're going to notice here that it says install Windows Server. Now before you freak out, understand that

9:58 the reason for this is the server version is basically at its core the same as the home version and the Pro version. The reason it downloads the server version is that the server version does not look for any specific Windows requirements like the TPM or the secure boot or any of those things that would prevent you from normally installing. Don't worry if you have a Windows 10 home edition. When this is done, you're going to have a Windows 11 home edition. And same with the Pro. So, don't worry about that. At this point, you can leave this box checked here, unless you just really want to help Microsoft out. and just simply click next. Now, it's going to take a couple minutes and go out and look for any available updates to include with the installation process. And this may take

10:46 just a couple minutes. That's fine. Just like any installer, it's going to check the PC and then it's going to bring you up to this where you just basically are accepting Microsoft's license agreement like you would do any other time you install Windows. You click accept. Now, this is important. If you remember a few steps ago where I said make sure you choose the version, the language version that matches your existing Windows operating system. If you chose the correct version, you will get this option here to keep your files, settings, and apps. And this is important. This is part of the process that will prevent you from having to wipe your computer completely or do any other crazy registry hacks or anything like that. This is basically what's known as an in place upgrade. It's just doing it on hardware that wasn't previously supported. If you did not choose the correct language, this option

11:32 right here either will be gone or it will be grayed out. You won't be able to keep your files, your settings, your apps, any of your personal data. You will only be able to just basically wipe it clean, which defeats the whole purpose of this video. So, if you need to go back, go through the steps again, make sure you choose the correct language. For most of you, if you're in the United States, make sure you choose English, United States, and you should be fine. Once you do it correctly and you see this option, make sure you say keep files, settings, and apps. And that will save all of your documents, your downloads, your pictures, all that stuff that you previously backed up, but it's going to keep it on the computer and just upgrade you to Windows 11. Once you've done that, all you have to do is click next. And that's it. The installation is going to start and off

12:18 it goes. Okay, so the Windows process is going. And during the installation, your machine's probably going to restart multiple times. That's fine. Your display may go blank. That's fine. Just be patient and let the process happen. Okay. So, we are almost at that point where we are ready to start installing Windows. The last step here is the ready to install. It's verified that you have a home edition or a pro edition. And it's got the option to keep your file settings and apps. That's what you want. And the last step in the process is to simply click install. You're going to see here, as I was explaining earlier, it's installing the server edition. But as you just saw in that last step, it's going to install the home part of that. Again, nothing to worry about. It's not going to change your version of the

13:03 operating system. At this point, sit back and wait for Windows to install. Now, depending on the speed of your computer and the speed of your internet connection, this could take a few minutes or could take a little bit longer. You got to remember it's downloading those updates, so it has less to do after the installation is complete. But however long it takes, just sit back, be patient. Now, as you can see, the machine has restarted and it is going through the update process, but it is starting to load Windows 11. So, at this point, just let it finish and before you know it, you'll be at your desktop. Okay. So, as you can see here, the Windows 11 desktop login screen is ready. And I'm just going to punch in my

13:50 PIN that is the same one I used on the Windows 10 version. Just like that, it's going to start setting up Windows 11. But we're not done yet. And just like that, you got Windows 11. And just to be sure that everything went according to plan, I'm going to go into my settings. And I'm going to go ahead and click on Windows update just to see if there's any new updates. And there usually is. Just click check for updates. And as you can see, there's a few new updates to download. But as far as upgrading to Windows 11, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be. All my desktop items are here. All my downloads, documents, pictures, everything that I had on my Windows 10 computer has been transferred over to Windows 11. And everything is working exactly like it's supposed to. If you made it this far, congratulations. You're done. So, I told you guys in the beginning that I was going to try to answer some questions

14:36 for you. And here's the questions that I think you probably might be asking. First of all, is this app really free? Yeah, it's an open- source project that you can easily download. The only thing that might be different is that the location is different. Again, I'll update the description if and when that happens. Another question is why haven't you mentioned this before? Well, I just found out about it and I'm loving it. This is fantastic and this is going to save so many people so much money not having to go and buy a new computer just because of Microsoft stringent requirements. Now, that being said, as I said before, if you are in the market for a new computer, make sure you click that link in the description and let me help guide you. Next question is, will I need to create a Microsoft account to upgrade to Windows 11? No. If you

15:21 already have a Microsoft account, you can just use that same login when Windows 11 comes back up just like I showed you. Or if you have a local account, use that one as well. The login process doesn't change. It's basically taking all your Windows 10 stuff and moving it to 11. That's it. You don't log in differently. your passwords don't change, none of that stuff. Next question is, will I need to reactivate or buy a Windows license? No. If you have an active Windows 10 machine that you upgrade to Windows 11, your Windows 10 key will work on Windows 11. And if you have to roll back to Windows 10, you don't have to do anything like you don't have to mess with the key either. It's automatic. It's built into the motherboard. Now, if for some reason you do need a product key, again, as I told you before, our sponsor, Keysfan, there's a link in the description to get

16:06 a super big discount, but you shouldn't need one. Not for this process. Pretty common question is going to be, should I still do this if my machine is really old? So, for example, if you had a Windows 7 machine from 10 years ago that got the free Windows 10 upgrade and you've been using Windows 10 ever since, but your computer's really, really slow even with Windows 10. Windows 11 is not going to make that much of a difference. As a matter of fact, it might slow it down a little bit. This video is primarily designed for those people who have really decent running Windows 10 machines that are relatively fast but just don't qualify for the Windows 11 upgrade. If your machine is 6 7 8 9 years or older, I would definitely recommend that you consider purchasing a new one. As I told you before, the links

16:53 in the description for some personalized recommendations, but otherwise, if your computer's running pretty good on Windows 10, it should run pretty good on Windows 11. Another question is is if this doesn't affect my data, should I really go ahead and back up before I do it? Well, yes, of course, because things happen. I would hate for you to go through this process thinking that everything works fine and then yours is the one that glitches out and crashes. It hasn't happened to me yet, but better to back up and not need it than to not back up at all. And besides, you should be having a regular backup anyway, right? Another question is, what if this fails or doesn't work? Well, simply just go through the steps again. No problem. It could have been a glitch. Could have been a problem with the download. It doesn't there's no telling what it was. But so far, I've had nothing but success. Now, the question is, will this

17:39 upgrade any Windows 10 computer? Yes, absolutely. As you just saw, this old computer, which is probably six plus years old, upgraded with no problem. If you have a valid Windows 10 machine, even if it was upgraded from 7 at some point, you should be fine because that Windows 10 key that's on your existing computer will allow you to install, activate, and run Windows 11 with no problem. Now, a very common question and something that's going to stir up a pretty big hornets nest is will running Windows 11 without the TPM or secure boot prerequisites cause issues down the road. Probably not immediately, maybe never. The reason for those requirements for the trusted platform module and the secure boot has to do with your

18:24 security, the TPM specifically regarding uh being able to encrypt your hard drive and things like that. uh you may run into issues down the road, more specifically with software that needs a specific hardware processor u to run. Uh but that should generally be the only issue that you have. Hopefully by the time that becomes an issue, you won't have to worry about it. You'll be upgrading a computer to faster hardware anyway and that won't be a problem. Another big question is going to be, will I continue to still get Windows updates after updating to Windows 11? The answer is yes and no. Maybe Microsoft will continue to provide you Windows updates on Windows 11 because you have a valid Windows 11 installation. Now, what may happen, and

19:12 Microsoft hasn't done this yet, but sometime down the road, they may decide to cut off those updates for machines that upgraded with unsupported hardware. Now, it doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It doesn't mean you didn't do everything by the book. It just means that they have the ability to say if your hardware isn't supported and you were able to install Windows 11 through alternative means like this one, they can cut you off. Will they do it? Who knows? I don't know. But in the meantime, enjoy your Windows 11 and just get the updates when they come in. If that ever becomes an issue, we'll make another video about it. The other question is, how can I determine if my computer can run Windows 11? Well, as I said before, the first thing you want to do is just go into Windows Updates. If Windows Updates gives you the option to

19:58 download and install Windows 11, use that. Do that process. That means that your computer is 100% ready to go with the regular Windows process and just make it part of your Windows updates. This is designed for those machines who can't run it. As I showed you before, with this machine, you can just go download the PC Health Check app from the internet, run it, and it will tell you whether or not your machine's upgradeable. But even if that doesn't allow you to upgrade, you can still use this method with no problem as I showed you with this laptop. Another question is, what if I upgrade to Windows 11 and I don't like it? That's entirely possible. It may be a little weird for you. But there is a feature called roll back and it's super easy to do. So, if for some reason you get Windows 11 and you decide you absolutely hate it, there

20:44 is a way to roll back to Windows 10. It's very simple. You're just going to go into your settings and then in settings, you're just going to type recovery. And then you'll see this option here to go back to Windows 10. Right here in the middle of the screen, this middle section where it says go back, if this version isn't working, go back to Windows 10. If you click that link, it will roll back to exactly the way your computer was before you started this process. Now, full disclosure, you have 10 days to roll your computer back to Windows 10 if you decide you want to go that route. After the 10th day, the only way to get Windows 10 back is to wipe your computer and fully reinstall it. But it gives you 10 days to evaluate Windows 11 and see what you think. Another question may be, where's the

21:30 link to download the software? I will put the download link in the video description. You can click right on it and just follow the steps as I showed you in the video. Again, if that link changes or the location changes, I will certainly update that, but I need you guys to let me know. Another big question is, how is this different than the Windows Installer disc that I talk about on my channel all the time? Very good question. The Windows Installer disc that I show you how to create or that I recommend that you create allows you to boot to that disc and do repair features. you know, uh, you know, check your hard drives, be able to access your data, uh, fix blue screens, things like that, or if necessary to do a full Windows reinstall. The problem with that is that is a Microsoft download. And as

22:16 I explained earlier, that Microsoft download has prerequisites. And if you need to reinstall Windows, for example, and your computer doesn't meet those requirements, that installation disc isn't going to do you any good. So, you could theoretically reinstall Windows 10 using that installer disc and then follow these steps to upgrade that machine from 10 to 11. Um, but this is really designed for just upgrading to Windows 11 with unsupported hardware. Similar discs, but they do two different things. The last question is is what if I want to stay on Windows 10 and not upgrade to Windows 11? I'll put a link on the screen for you. I did explain in detail what would happen after October

23:01 14th if you have a Windows 10 computer and what the potential ramifications are. And now that you have Windows 11 on your computer, you may be saying, "I don't know how to do any of this." The cool part is I made a video walking you through everything that's different between Windows 11 and Windows 10. And if you want to check that out, the video is on your screen right now. As always, if you have any comments, make sure you leave them below. Support the channel if you can and we'll see you in the next