[Beta Version] Rufus v4.6 Now Supports Bypassing Windows 11 Restrictions Locally Without Needing to Reinstall the System
Brook.X
The open-source installation tool Rufus now allows for bypassing Microsoft's hardware installation restrictions by automatically modifying the registry when burning a Windows 11 image to a USB drive. However, this method was only applicable for fresh installations, not upgrades.
If a user attempted to use the prepared USB drive to directly upgrade from Windows 11 version 23H2 to 24H2, they would encounter an issue where the system's hardware requirements were not met, preventing the upgrade.
To address this issue, Rufus introduced a new setup.exe wrapper in its v4.6 Beta version, which enables local bypassing of restrictions for direct upgrades, eliminating the need for a fresh system installation.
It's worth noting that Windows 11 version 24H2 also drops support for CPUs lacking the SSE4.2 instruction set, meaning some very old CPUs (released around 2005) will not be able to install or upgrade due to this limitation.
Rufus will not provide a solution for this issue because, fundamentally, while Microsoft offers methods to bypass TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, etc., there is no provided method for overcoming the SSE4.2 issue.
Given this situation, researching unofficial solutions is seen as futile. Rufus will continue to develop within Microsoft's framework, therefore not offering bypass methods that Microsoft itself does not support.
Below are the update logs for Rufus v4.6 Beta version:
- Added a new setup.exe wrapper to bypass local upgrade restrictions for Windows 11 version 24H2.
- Time zone information added to regional options can now directly copy local time zone information.
- Set local account passwords to never expire, so users won't periodically see prompts to change the password after creation (this option can also be manually modified in Windows User Management).
- Fixed errors that occurred when attempting to write compressed VHD images.
- Fixed errors that appeared when calling Rufus from a PowerShell command.
- Improved the revoked UEFI boot loader checker to support Linux SBAT, Windows SVN, and the certificate DBX.
