How can I upgrade Windows 10 to 11 without losing data and programs on unsupported cpu?

 I actually pulled this off on my old Dell Inspiron that “doesn’t meet the requirements,” and it worked flawlessly — all from the command line. Here’s how I managed to upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 on unsupported CPU without losing a single file or app.

(1) Mount your Windows 11 ISO (right-click → Mount).
Let’s assume it’s mounted as drive D:

(2) Open Command Prompt (Admin) and run these commands one by one:

D: cd setup

(If there’s no “setup” folder, just stay in D: — we’ll run the installer manually.)

(3) To skip the CPU and TPM check, rename or remove the appraiser file:

takeown /f D:\sources\appraiserres.dll icacls D:\sources\appraiserres.dll /grant administrators:F del D:\sources\appraiserres.dll

(4) Now start the upgrade from the same CMD window:

setup.exe /auto upgrade /dynamicupdate disable /compat ignorewarning

That line tells Windows setup to launch the upgrade automatically, skip hardware checks, and keep your files and apps intact.

(5) Sit back — it’ll take a while but it’ll go through. I used these same steps to upgrade Windows 10 to 11 on unsupported CPU, and it runs perfectly. No data loss, no registry edits, just pure command-line magic.

Official Microsoft reference: Microsoft acknowledges that Windows 11 can be installed on unsupported hardware, but it’s not officially supported — check their documentation here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/windows-11-on-devices-that-don-t-meet-minimum-system-requirements-0b2dc4a2-5933-4ad4-9c09-ef0a331518f1