Windows 11 in Qubes

General Discussion
8

There is now a documented way to install Windows 11 without TPM, by disabling the TPM check during setup:

  • When you start setup without having a TPM, you get an error message like “This PC does not fulfil the minimum requirements for Windows 11”.
  • Typing Shift-F10 then opens a console window.
  • Here you type regedit to start the registry editor.
  • There you position to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup.
  • Now create the key LabConfig.
  • Position to this key and create 3 DWORD values called BypassTPMCheck, BypassSecureBootCheck and BypassRAMCheck and set each value to 1.
  • Close the regstry editor and console windows.
  • In the setup window, hit the left arrow in the left upper corner. You will then return into the setup, which will continue normally and install Windows 11 without TPM 2.0.

I did all this and was able to install a Windows 11 template in Qubes R4.0.4 without problems. There I even succeeded in installing QWT 4.0.1.3 and get a stable connection to Qubes, following the instructions in Installing and Using Qubes Windows Tools, including relocation of the user directories. Creating an AppVM based on this template worked, too, and file and clipboard copy/paste to/from other AppVMs showed that communication via qrexec works.

So we can say that Qubes already supports Windows 11!!!

Microsoft states that using Windows 11 without TPM can cause errors, but I didn’t see any, so far. They also say that such systems won’t receive security patches, but - I think - that is by far outweighed by running it in the secure Qubes environment.

In the next days I will try this with Qubes R4.1 and QWT 4.1-65. See what happens …

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