What You'll Need

  • A Mac or PC Windows 10 already installed via Boot Camp or other means
  • Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft
  • A USB thumb drive

Credit Where It's Due

These instructions are based on a post by Darall on Reddit, so credit to them for figuring this out.

The Process

You'll need to be already booted into Windows 10 for this to work. Here's the step-by-step:

  1. Go to microsoft.com and download the Windows 11 ISO.
  2. Copy the ISO onto your USB drive.
  3. Disconnect from the internet. For me, that meant unplugging Ethernet and disconnecting from Wi-Fi.
  4. Double-click the ISO you copied onto your USB drive to mount it. Make note of the drive letter it mounts as. For me, it mounted as I. Yours will probably be different.
  5. Open Run from the Start menu (or press Windows + R).

The Command That Makes It Work

In Run, enter:

X:\sources\setupprep.exe /product server

Replace X with your ISO's drive letter.

setupprep.exe is a Windows setup helper used to start an in-place upgrade from inside an existing Windows session. When you run it against a Windows 11 ISO, it still installs Windows 11 — but this mode is commonly used because it bypasses (or relaxes) some of Windows 11's hardware checks, like TPM, Secure Boot, and CPU checks. Those checks are what normally block installs on unsupported hardware.

Installing

This will launch the installer. It'll take a bit. Then click Install and let it do its thing. It'll reboot a few times, and that's basically it.

Important Notes

As always, if you have important data, back it up before you start.

This doesn't just apply to Macs, it'll work on any unsupported computer. But I'm a Mac guy, so that's what I went with.