Can you directly upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 11?

You can't officially perform an in-place upgrade from anything but Windows 10 on select systems to Windows 11... says noone but Microsoft.

[Resources Used]

[ToraSapphire]

[Notes]
- Cube Computer Channel's video on the same matter from 2022 had a couple of points that I completely neglected, namely the fact you lose all your user-installed programs due to there being no option to carry them over. To bypass that, you would have to upgrade to Windows 10 first - which defeats the whole point of the experiment.
- Windows 7's activation status doesn't carry over to 11, the reason 11 was activated on the machine I tested this on is because 10 was already HWID activated.
- There is no practical reason to do this. Performing an in-place upgrade on your daily driver has never been recommended because it's always been known to break things. Also, a machine that is from the Windows 7 era probably shouldn't be running 11 anyway, but it's your computer, your choice of what OS to install.
- We know, Windows 11 bad. This video's title comes from the technical basis on upgrading from Windows 7 to 11, not which OS is better. I tried keeping my opinions out of the video until the end.

[Stefan.Stefanov]

You can upgrade from 7 to 11 without any problems using Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC because that version of Win11 doesn't require TPM and Secure boot. Also, it's very clean Windows that needs only 2GB RAM and 16GB disk space, and supports old hardware like GPU with DX9 or DX10 or even none DX support, old CPUs, and legacy MBR partition for laptops or PCs that don't support UEFI :)

[Fiku_]

Thats interesting, now i know what i will do over my week break as all my friends are either in school or on trips, upgrade from windows 7 to 11 on a netbook with 1 gig of ram and an intel atom 455

[uni_sp]

It's impressive seeing that Windows 11 setup on Windows 7, even though 11 is just Windows 10 with more features.

[UUUUUUUMAR]

You can upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 11 on an acer aspire e1-571, which is first upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7.

[itzyamiha]

You could've tried to boot from a Windows 10 PE USB drive and applied the Windows 11 ISO image to the main drive using the DISM tool, might sound advanced but it's actually not. But that way it won't spare a single file (won't save)

[zachbenore]

You also have to consider if your device hardware can even handle windows 11. When they released windows 10 upgrade to older computers for the first time i had a very old windows 7 laptop and within weeks after the update the hard drive completely shut down because it couldnt handle windows 10 because of how old it was

[lastnamechico]

I would say that it mostly shows that Windows 11 is Windows 10 but modern and a bit more under the hood.

[july]

Interesting. I have done a few Windows 7 to Windows 11 Upgrades (consumer retail versions), but never directly. Always Windows 7 to Windows 10, then to Windows 11. Forget Windows 7 32bit. That's a non-starter.

And Microsoft is quite right that you cannot do this upgrade. If you are using third party workarounds that is your lookout not Microsoft's. It should also invalidate any support warranty from Microsoft. You change it, you fix it.

I have been seriously impressed with the way Windows 10 will 'adjust' to new hardware. For example, if I wanted to put a Windows 7 System Drive in different hardware, there is a very high chance of failing mainly due to Drivers. But take a Windows 7 System and in place upgrade it to Windows 10. Then swap the Drive into a different PC and I was amazed at how often that worked seamlessly. Windows 10 obviously did a little Device dance during Boot, and Drivers may need updating once loaded, but you get a working Desktop. Whether Windows 11 has this robustness I don't know. Never tried, but I would think it should assuming the hardware passed the requirements.

No consumer in their right mind should use Windows 11 hacked onto unsupported hardware. I's different for Nerds as we can bizarrely have fun mucking around like that, but then we can clean up our own mess. Unless a consumer has a friendly Nerd on tap, but I would still not recommend it. Once hacked it will continue to need hacking at every Feature update, and who knows if Microsoft will not just prevent Updates on non-compliant Systems one day. They are certainly not going to support you if you have a problem.

One issue that can (likely) be encountered is MBR to GPT. Windows 7 can be 'persuaded' to install and run on a GPT Partition, but it's a faff and pretty irrelevant now. Windows 7 will natively install on MBR. Windows 11 System Drive MUST be GPT. The conversion from MBR to GPT is not trivial. It's not a problem with Windows 10 as it is happy with MBR.

My workaround was to Update Windows 7 MBR to Windows 10 in place. File System still MBR. Then clone the disk to another disk using Acronis which gives the option to convert to GPT. It says that the disk will not be bootable after but you will have a valid Windows 7 system installed on GPT.

The next trick is to build the EFI Partition to make it bootable, which can be done from a Command Window (bootrec.exe) after using DISKPART.exe, with the cautionary that the position of Partitions on the Disk is critical so in some cases they may have to be repositioned. Not an easy ask with DISKPART.exe so I would probably use something like Parted Magic. Windows 7 isn't an ideal Partition setup for Windows 10 +. If UEFI/Secure Boot is on then it should Boot. I have done this. The MBR to GPT is most likely to be the show stopper if the process fails I would think.

Anyway, I am retired now, but did Computers and IT for over 40 years. I have seen some changes I can tell you! Now I just play with it... 😉

[VOLTRONDEFENDER]

Interesting how you need to have the display tpm file to be able to upgrade to windows 11

[darkking]

Misleading title - going from 7 to 11 is a DOWNGRADE, not an UPGRADE.

[SummonerArthur]

Nice experiment, even if it has the expected results. Makes me wonder which other weird upgrades can you do between windows versions

[ZipplyZane]

I was under the impression that the "upgrade" options was "Keep apps and files." I thought "keep files only" just backed up your files and then did a clean install--so no settings transfer over, either.

[Standarduser-mo]

There's an command to by pass the requirements.

[impossiblescissors]

I've upgraded 10->11 on unsupported (no tpm) hardware by running setup from command line with the product server option. Wonder if this would make your Tpm hack redundant. Excellent effort!

[mead]

Windows seven does support UEFI but does not support Sarah boots, which need to be disabled beforehand!

[MarekSurek.]

Great vid 😊 does tpm bypass still be there for 23H2 update and if no, will it work when you again run the script?

[OleAlexanderBrunaes]

How about installing/upgrade Windows Vista directly from Windows ME?

[benadrylfan]

yo, where did you get W11 21H1 ISO? i've been looking for it for ages...

[PugGamer]

I mean if you were running Windows 7 on a Modern Gaming PC that meets Windows 11's System requirements you can. Then again I seen people do what you're doing which is installing it on Older PC's, Most it seems to work fine on most Old PCs so you're fine either way lol.