Virtual Machines are handy little programs and provide you with the perfect sandbox environment to play around in.

So, it can be pretty irritating when Windows decides to block an installation due to unsupported hardware. Here's how to bypass the unsupported hardware message in a virtual machine running Windows 11.

Virtual Machines Can Skirt Around Windows 11's Minimum Requirements

Before we proceed, you should know that the following method bypasses Windows 11's hardware check entirely. This is useful for getting Windows 11 running on virtually anything; however, it also means that Windows 11 won't stop you from installing it on a PC that has no hope of running it.

For example, Windows 11 won't check if it has enough storage space to install itself. As such, it's worth double-checking Windows 11's system requirements before you try to install it on your virtual machine. In a worst-case scenario, you'll get an error message; however, it's worth ensuring you nail the installation on the first attempt so you don't waste time.

The Problem With Installing Windows 11 in a Virtual Machine on Unsupported Hardware

screenshot of the windows 11 hardware check on a virtual machine

We're going to use Oracle's VirtualBox for the sake of this tutorial. It's important to properly configure the virtual machine to minimize the headaches of running Windows 11 on suboptimal hardware.

If you try to install Windows 11 on a virtual machine like normal, you'll see an error message as shown above. This is the hardware check, and most virtual machine installs will fail it.

In order to get Windows 11 installed on this virtual machine, we'll need to perform a registry edit to force Windows to ignore the hardware check within the virtual machine.

How to Bypass the Hardware Check

windows 11 virtual machine regedit in cmd

Bypassing the hardware check is easy. Close any current installations with the red X symbol. This will bring you back to the Install Now screen.

From here, you'll want to press Shift + F10 in your virtual machine. This will open a command prompt window.

Type Regedit into the command prompt window and hit Enter.

adding a new key in regedit via windows 11 virtual machine

Registry Editor will open. Navigate to the following path, using the directory on the side. Refer to the above image to double-check you're in the right place.

        Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup
    

Right click the Setup heading. Hover your mouse over New and press Key. Name the newly created folder in the directory LabConfig. This is case-sensitive, so ensure it's typed exactly as written here.

windows 11 adding new dword virtual machine

Now, Right-click on the right-hand side of the window, with LabConfig selected. Hover your cursor over New and select DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Do this twice, so that you have two new values created in LabConfig.

Name these values as the following, keeping in mind the same case sensitivity from before.

        BypassSecureBootCheck
BypassTPMCheck

Double click on one of the newly created DWORD (32-bit) Values. Enter into the Value Data field 00000001.

windows 11 virtual machine altering dword value

Do this again for the other value.

Once these values are set, you can exit out of all currently open windows and resume the Windows 11 installation.

Windows will no longer prevent you from continuing past the license agreement. You can proceed with the installation in full. You can even remove these registry edits once the installation is complete. Refer to the earlier linked guide on the safest way to do this.

Flexible Installation, Even for Virtual Machines

As you can see, it's not that hard to wrangle Windows 11 onto just about anything, even suboptimal virtual machines.

It helps that Windows 11 is surprisingly optimized despite the early builds. However, keep in mind that performance will vary depending on what you're trying to run the operating system on. It might not be ideal to test Windows 11 as a whole on a suboptimal virtual machine.