Installing Windows 11 on incompatible PCs

Older PCs that do not have TPM 2.0 chip on their motherboard and Secure Boot in the BIOS cannot run Windows 11. However, there is a way for you to bypass the Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 requirements by fusing the more permissible requirements of Windows 10 installation with the core of Windows 11. It's like putting a wolf in sheep clothing where the computer hardware thinks Windows 10 is being installed into it, but in reality, it is Windows 11. With that said, because this trick sidestep the preliminary hardware check done by the tru Windows 11 installer, the Windows 11 drivers that come with the core Windows 11 may not be compatible with one or more components of the PC. Moreover, the unsanctioned Windows 11 installation may be unstable. Basically, while this workaround may let you breath new life into older computers, it is not recommended that you use this on your mission-critical or daily-driver machines.  

First, make sure you have the following things:

• Windows 11 ISO file, downloaded from Microsoft website
• Windows 10 bootable USB drive of at least 8GB. This is the USB that will install "Windows 10" into the computer where the core Windows 11 payload is encapsulated by the preflight Windows 10 installer.
• Computer running Windows 10 to use to put the core Windows 11 (the wolf) into the Windows 10 (sheep clothing)

1. Navigate to the Windows 11 ISO file on the Windows 10 machine.
2. Right click on it and choose Mount.
3. Open the mounted ISO image and open the sources folder inside.
4. Look for the install.wim file, select it, and press Ctrl + C.
5. Connect the bootable Windows 10 USB drive to PC and open it.
6. Also, find and open the sources folder inside.
7. Press Ctrl + V to paste the install.wim file you’ve copied.
8. Click Replace the file in the destination in the pop-up dialog window.
9. Reboot your computer into BIOS and enter the boot menu.
10. Change the boot device order: adjust your bootable USB drive to be the first option.
11. Exit BIOS and save changes.
12. Your computer will restart and you’ll be asked to select and install a Windows 11 version. Remember, the installer from the USB drive thinks it is installing Windows 10, but it is actually installing Windows 11 because the source wim file is Windows 11.

There are two potentially two problems with the preparation. The first is the installer USB drive created by the Microsoft Media Creation tool for Windows 10 may format the drive FAT32. The install.wim file for Windows 11 is over 4GB which cannot be stored in a FAT32 drive. The solution is to create the Windows 10 installer USB drive using Rufus where you tell Rufus to format the USB drive as NTFS. 

The second problem is the installer.wim file in the Windows 10 installer may be in the .esd format. You can delete this file and in its place put in the install.wim file from the Windows 11 iso. The installer routine seems to accept both .wim and .esd format.

During this special Windows 11 installation, the initial process looks like you are installing Windows 10, but after the first restart, it will look like the expected Windows 11 installation. 

The same trick can be used to upgrade an existing Windows 10 incompatible machine to Windows 11 by swapping the WIM file.

Chromeboxes

Every ChromeOS device receives regular updates from Google until it reaches its Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date, based on component manufacturers. When a device reaches AUE, automatic software updates from Google will no longer be provided. Chrome devices last a long time. Therefore, before you buy one, you should check how long Google will release updates for it.

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en#zippy=%2Casus

My current favorite Chromebox is the ASUS Chromebox 4. Its AUE is 2028. It also comes in 4 with faster CPU and memory. For basic use, the lowest Chromebox 4 with the Celeron CPU and 4GB of memory should be fine.

https://www.asus.com/displays-desktops/mini-pcs/chrome-os-devices/asus-chromebox-4

https://www.androidauthority.com/asus-chromebox-4-review-1219076

Everything You Need to Know About Multi Monitors Use

 https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/monitors-extended-desktop-3-check/

Cloudflare VPN

If you want the simplest VPN service that is free, super simple to set up, and provided by a well-known mainstream company, there is no service that satisfies all the criteria other than Cloudflare. Its offering is called WARP. You can go to its website at www.cloudflare.com, search for WARP, download and install its WARP program. You don't even need to provide it any names. Once installed, you would simply turn on the WARP service. This will create a VPN tunnel between your computer and its many relay servers on the Internet. When you browse the Internet under this WARP tunnel, the websites you visit see the Cloudflare's relay server instead of your actual computer's network. That's it. Because of its simplicity, this WARP service has one big disadvantage. You cannot control the "exit server" on Cloudflare end. So if you want the website you visit to think you are from a particular country, this is not possible. 

Cloudflare offers much more than this if you want to dig deeper with its Zero Trust network. With this, you can have two computers at two different geographical locations join a virtual network using Cloudflare as the middleman. This service does require 2 things: you have a custom domain such as yourdomain.com and that you use Cloudflare as your domain's DNS server. 

Create Custom Microsoft Office Installers

The majority of us get our Microsoft Office by going to the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.com.

1. Search for Office.
2. Pick the package of our choice.
3. Log in with our Microsoft account.
4. Pay for it.
5. Download and install it.

Do you know you can create customized Office installation packages that have exactly the programs you want. You don't even need to log in first with a Microsoft account. However, once all is done, you still need to activate the program(s) with a Microsoft account or a valid serial number. 

Few people use OneNote, OneDrive, and even PowerPoint. If you just want the installation to have only Word and Excel, you can. These are the steps as explained in this Youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v1dLC8H7_k&t=21s

The first main step:

Create a configuration with the Microsoft Office Customization Tool. This step creates an XML file (a glorified plain text file) that has the instruction on the programs you want in the installer. You would go to

https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings 

Pick and choose your version of Office.

Office LTSC is the perpetual version of Office for commercial customers, a device-based license available as a one-time, “perpetual” purchase, available on both macOS and Windows. See below for the nitty gritty of this license type:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-2021-and-office-ltsc-for-windows-and-mac-faq-d574cf0b-3ebc-42cf-9035-a3b837e0463c

https://office-watch.com/2021/the-good-and-bad-in-office-ltsc 

The second main step:

Using the Office Deployment Tool, you actually download a program that when run, will look into the configuration file to download what is dictated in the file. Make sure that the configuration file and the deployment tool are in the same folder on the computer. Strangely, the deployment tool is not the setup file in its final form. Running the tool will self-extract to create the setup tool. This setup tool is the one that is placed in the same folder as the configuration XML file. To make the next step simpler with less typing, you should put this folder on the root C drive by going to the C drive in File Explorer and put this folder there so that the path to this folder is C:\<folder name>

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117 

Because this setup file is in the MSI format, the installation is done with the commandline. Open the commandline, that results in a black window. Type this:

cd c:\<folder name>

setup /configure Configuration.xml

Hit Enter on the keyboard

The setup program will run to go out to the Microsoft server to download just the programs listed in the configuration file. 

Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant

If you use Microsoft Office long enough, you will eventually run into seemingly intractable problems with it where a simple uninstallation and reinstallion does not fix the problem. Because the Office Suite is complex program, sometimes it needs another program, an insider also made by Microsoft, to fix it. This insider fixer is the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant program.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/100607

The Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant tool, aka SARA, is a scalpel uninstall support tool in the form of SetupProd_OffScrub.exe program.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/uninstall-office-from-a-pc-9dd49b83-264a-477a-8fcc-2fdf5dbf61d8

Strange may it seems, there are different installers for Office as explained by the support article above. The steps to uninstall Microsoft 365 depend on the type of installation you have. The most common installation types are Click-to-Run and Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI). The other type is a Microsoft 365 installation from the Microsoft Store app.

So there are different ways to get Office on your machine. As such, there are different ways to cleanly extricate Office from it. First, you have to know who Office got into your computer.

How to bypass internet connection to install Windows 11

Of all the annoying things Microsoft imposes on its customers, this one ranks near the top. With the latest Windows 11 version, namely 22H2, the computer getting it installed on is required to be connected to the Internet during the installation process so Microsoft can "download latest security updates" to incorporate into the installation. Well, what happens when you install Windows 11 where there is no Internet connection? Are you stuck? Not if you follow the instruction here:

https://pureinfotech.com/bypass-internet-connection-install-windows-11

Basically, on the “Oops, you’ve lost internet connection” or “Let’s connect you to a network” page, use the Shift + F10 keyboard to get out of this bind to bring up a command line window. On some laptops, you need to key in a third function key so the key sequence is Shift + fn + F10 

In Command Prompt, type the OOBE\BYPASSNRO command to bypass the network requirement on Windows 11 and press Enter.

The computer will restart automatically. Then you will see this:

Whew! Now you can proceed with the installation by clicking on "I don't have internet"and curse Microsoft for having to make you go through this step.

How To Back Up The Google Authenticator App

 https://passwordbits.com/how-to-back-up-the-google-authenticator-app

Long story short, you would tell the Google Authenticator app to export the various accounts managed by it. The process will create one or more QR codes, depending on how many 2FA accounts you try to export. Each QR code encompasses up to ten 2FA accounts, meaning if you have 11 accounts, the process will create two QR codes. The resulting QR codes look more "dense" than a typical QR code. I  suspect these QR codes have more complex information. You will scan these QR codes to recreate the 2FA accounts on a different smart phone such as your new replacement phone.

Useful Shortcuts in Managing Windows

There are a few commands that are used often by technicians to manage Windows. Things like creating and deleting user accounts. The following commands would be typed in the Search Bar which can be open by hitting the Windows key + R.

sysdm.cpl





lusrmgr.msc

certmgr.msc

This lists all the certificates used by Windows to authenticate to one online resources. In some cases, certificates are used in lieu of passwords. So if your Windows machine cannot authenticate to some network resource that it could previously, the culprit could simply be a stale, expired, or corrupted certificate. Deleting the existing certificates forces Windows to get new ones from the network resources.

Go to Trusted Root Certification, then Certificates. There, look for any expired certificates and delete them. 

How to Remote Connect to a Windows PC From a Raspberry Pi

Remmina is the program that you would use to do this on the Pi, but it needs some dependencies to be able to work on Raspbian OS. There are a few packages that have these dependencies. The most popular is xrdp because it is built specifically for the RDP protocol. Snap is another but it has a larger footprint that may not be suitable for lower-end Pi devices. So the 3 steps to install Remmina is:Update and upgrade the 

1. Raspbian OS
2. Get the dependencies
3. Install Remmina

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remote-connect-windows-pc-raspberry-pi/


https://snapcraft.io/install/remmina/raspbian

You can use this to remote to a Proxmox VE server that hosts multiple Windows guest VMs. This way, you can have an office or a computer lab that does not need to have multiple electricity-sapping full blown Windows stations, but low-cost low-power Raspberry Pi devices including these that have the Pi built into the keyboard.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-400

HP printer setup (Wi-Fi Direct)

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_1841315-1637332-16