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Thatcherw's avatar
Thatcherw
Iron Contributor
Nov 13, 2025

Please help me upgrade Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 for my laptop

Dell Latitude Laptop with Intel Core i5-6300U CPU, 8GB RAM and 120 GB SSD. I heard Windows 11 has more strict system requirement. Not sure if this laptop is eligible to run Windows 11. What is the be...
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Quincos's avatar
Quincos
Iron Contributor
Nov 13, 2025

You can uses the official Windows 11 Installation Assistant but modifies a system file on your current Windows 8.1 to temporarily bypass the compatibility check. It's more direct than the Windows 10 tool method.

If the Installation Assistant method fails, your only other non-technical option is to perform a clean installation using an unmodified Windows 11 ISO. This would require:

  • Using the Media Creation Tool to create a USB installer.
  • Booting from the USB and doing a clean install.
  • During installation, if you see the "This PC can't run Windows 11" message, simply pressing Shift + F10 and typing setup.exe /product server can sometimes bypass it without complex registry edits.

 

Something about upgrading Windows 8.1 to Windows 11, the Windows 11 Installation Assistant method with the bypass script is the most direct path that aligns with your goal of avoiding the Rufus and manual registry methods. It's a popular and widely-used technique for upgrading unsupported hardware like your capable Dell Latitude.

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