Well. Did the update on an Asus laptop. Didn't meet the hw requirements even though Windows Update readied it for it.
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.59 GHz
12.0 GB (11.7 GB usable)
Intel/Nvidia graphics
Has Secure boot (disabled for install)
1 TB Crucial SSD
Used Acronis to clone the drive to my server. Whoever says backups take "a few minutes" might be missing a few things like application data, Edge, Chrome, Firefox bookmarks and credential stores. Things like Thunderbird profile, account passwords. Downloaded files. All that stuff. Hours boys. Hours. With an Ethernet cable.
An external drive would have been just about as slow.
Probably should have just pulled the SSD and hooked it into the server, huh!
Used the Rufus method. It mods the image to bypass the requirements. It "sorta" bypasses the stupid Microsoft account login if you use
test@test.com as an email.
Burned an 8 GB USB. Disabled Secure Boot in UEFI.
Booted off of it. Asus lappys use the <esc> key right after power on to select the USB.
So it installed. "Minutes"? More like 20.
Custom install. Delete all partitions.
Let it go. It installed and was up at the preliminary setup screens. Got through those. Local account.
It was activated already. Not bad for a pc not meeting the requirements.
Installed the Crucial Storage Executive application. Optimized the SSD for performance.
Previously installing it after updates, a pile of must-have applications. It crashed the system cold.
So what better time to check, right? Well....success. A few cold boots and the pc is stable.
Next. Auto login. No control userpasswords2 option to disable having to enter a password on startup.
Quick registry edit (and a Google to refresh the steps). PC boots up to a desktop.
Power options to keep the display on more than a few minutes.
Shoved the taskbar to the left where it belongs.
Another couple of registry edits to disable password entry on opening the lid, waking from sleep. Both pains in the butt!
Another registry edit to restore the classic context menu. Windows 11 sucks in that. I just want to use 7 Zip w/o clicking on "more" every stinking time I rt. click.
Themes settings to add all the normal My Computer, user files, network, control panel to the desktop.
Device manager showing a buttload of unknown devices. Restored to a single right click on My Computer to get to that after the context menu tweak.
Hit up Windows Update. Surprisingly it was functional as opposed to the "might not work with a modded install".
Did all the preliminary updates and reboots.
During the reboots the display went a bit nuts. Like the cable was loose on it. Glitching. A cold boot fixed that.
More update stages. Finally with those out of the way. Did the hardware updates in the "oh, it's down there!" menu.
All done, still a few mystical devices now working. Things like keyboard backlight not working, track pad gestures not playing nice.
Device manager, funky devices, hardware id's copied and Googled. Hit the Asus drivers page. Intel Thermal Management driver didn't work. Found an HP driver that did.
Finally. No more bang....!....marks in dev. mgr.
Probably a few more instinct, seat of the pants tweaks you think nothing about when you do this crap all of the time for customers.
Not a big believer in a simple upgrade to a new OS. Especially when the existing one is cluttered. This is my daily pc.
Some things like enabling function discovery protocols in services. To be able to see other networked computers on my LAN. Enabling Windows components, SMB, to see networked Linux pc's and them to see me.
So far, so good. A bit longer than a few minutes though. And no where even done restoring documents and such.
Yeah!