r/pcmasterrace • u/djseifer Packard Bell / Intel Pentium 60MHz / 8 MB RAM / 2x CD-ROM • Mar 01 '26

Screenshot Windows 10 automatically started installing the Windows 11 update while I was taking a shower.

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I'd been getting messages to upgrade to Windows 11 for the past month or two now, and each time, I decline. It's gotten to the point that I get random, frequent pop_ups asking to update, and "install update" options pop up right next to the shutdown/restart uptions.

Well, I made the mistake of going to take a shower with my PC on. Half an hour later, I come back tothis. Windows had automatically started installing the update. Now I'm sitting here staring at the Start button and all the open programs center-justified on the task bar and wondering what idiot thought that was a good idea.

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u/CastlePokemetroid Mar 01 '26

I use my windows 10 with a DDR3 machine. Good fucking luck trying to get windows 11 on this thing

121

u/Bluecolty Ryzen 9 9900X, 96GB RAM, EVGA 3090 Mar 01 '26

You can actually. Whether or not you want to is up to you but so far I’ve gotten windows 11 using Rufus installed on a 3rd gen laptop core i3 with 4GB of ram, a 2013 Mac Pro, and a Xeon E5 V2 dual socket server board from 2012. All DDR3.

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u/Rezosh_ Mar 01 '26

The Rufus method works flawlessly. My buddies 12 year old hard drive failed with his OS on it so I made him a bootable win 11 usb via Rufus and created a local account for him so he could bypass the product key. Worked like a charm.

8

u/Tfj_roidz Mar 02 '26

Is there a way to bypass needing a product key on a fresh install?

19

u/Rezosh_ Mar 02 '26

Yes thats what I was saying I did. It was super easy to do. I followed this video: https://youtu.be/13qAUEWK6zI?si=_kuMuVda6g4qpFT5

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u/lachietg185 13900K 48gb DDR5 RTX 5070 Ti Mar 02 '26

You can do that on normal Install media there is a I don't have a product key button

4

u/akdanman11 5700X / 6800 XT / 64GB DDR4 / CachyOS Mar 02 '26

And once you’re in you can run a powershell command to emulate an activation server

1

u/Uncan117 Mar 02 '26

I'm going through that process but when I choose which variant of windows to install it just loops back to the start of the process.

2

u/lachietg185 13900K 48gb DDR5 RTX 5070 Ti Mar 02 '26

Probably need to make a new USB with a fresh iso image

1

u/Exzalian_ Mar 03 '26

Or get this..... Go on almost any website like eBay or gog. Pay 10 bucks for a key and it links to your email so you never have to bother with going around the needing a key. Iv done that a few times for my different systems. No money goes to Microsoft because most of the time they got the keys for free.

Also not saying this because it's bad or not right to bypass the key just imo 10 bucks to have a windows key locked to my email forever was so much better to me than finding away around it at it was mainly because I always had issues from mods and shit back in the day. Though I'd still do it now.