To test out Windows 11 in the safest manner possible – which, is to say, to not interfere with your current Windows install – you will want to use a virtual machine. Testing Windows 11 Inside Of A Virtual Machine Booting up with this flash drive will allow you to install Windows 11. Once the transfer is complete, you should right-click the drive in “This PC” (Win + E) to safely remove it, or do so by clicking the USB icon in the system tray. In our case, our G:\ thumb drive is disk 4: From inside there, you will be cross-compare the drive letter that’s been assigned to the drive (eg: G:\), and then see its respective disk # to the left. If your thumb drive isn’t easily identifiable in this list, you should right-click the Start menu icon and open Disk Management. When you run the list disk option, your thumb drive should stand out, as it will likely be the smallest drive in your system. Select disk # – change # to the disk (flash drive) you wish to use List disk – shows available disks, look carefully for the one that looks like your flash drive Here’s the entire process to reformat the flash drive: You’ll then be brought to a different command line where you can manually format your thumb drive. With the open command prompt, you’ll want to type in diskpart and hit enter. To access it, you must open command prompt as Administrator the easiest way is to hit Start, search for cmd, and then right-click the application to tell it to open as Administrator. If Rufus doesn’t work for your drive (which seems unlikely), you could try using the diskpart tool built right into Windows instead.
You’ll then see that ISO reflected by name in the “Boot selection” drop-down, as seen in the same shot.Ĭreating Bootable Flash Drive With diskpart After verifying that, you need to click “Select” in the “Boot selection” area, and find and double-click your Windows 11 ISO. You need to make absolute sure that the appropriate thumb drive is selected, in case the default is an unintended target. If you don’t see your drive reflected, you may just need to restart Rufus. Or, you could also download a clean ISO that you can install from directly, or flash to a thumb drive ( or burn to DVD), or use to install Windows 11 inside of a virtual machine.
Afterwards, you will be able to upgrade to Windows 11 from within your current Windows 10 install. To install Windows 11 the official way, you will need to register for Microsoft’s Insider Preview program, which can be done at the Insider Preview homepage. Installing Windows 11 Via The Insider Preview Program
Considering the fact that Windows 11 demands a modern PC, chances are good that your PC could pull off virtual machine use without any issue. An exception to this would be if you had a spare PC that you don’t mind using for experiments.įor most folks, we’d recommend installing Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation Player to run Windows 11 as a guest OS inside of your native OS. Or, if you don’t want to bother with registering for the Insider Preview, you could instead download a Windows 11 ISO and upgrade by running the setup from inside the image.Īgain, we don’t recommend installing the Windows 11 preview to a standalone PC unless you’re an experienced user, and are willing to manually reinstall Windows 10 should anything go awry. You could install Windows 11 to a preexisting Windows 10 PC via the Insider Preview program, which would allow you to upgrade in-place. You have a couple of options here, as mentioned above. Creating Bootable Flash Drive With diskpartĥ. Creating Bootable Flash Drive With RufusĤb. Copying A Windows 11 ISO To Flash DriveĤa. Installing Or Upgrading Windows 11 Via UUP dumpĤ. Install Or Upgrade To Windows 11 With An Insider Preview ISOģ. Upgrade To Windows 11 With Windows UpdateĢb. Installing Windows 11 Via The Insider Preview ProgramĢa.
First Things First: Deciding How To TestĢ. Note that Microsoft admits Windows 11 should be installable to “unsupported” systems, but your mileage may vary. You should be able to Google search your motherboard model to see if it has it, or check out the support page for your specific CPU vendor: AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm. In an attempt to make its upcoming OS as modern as possible, especially on the security front, Microsoft requires PCs to support Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. An important thing to be aware of is that Windows 11 has stricter system requirements than we’ve seen with previous releases.