install Windows 11

Welcome to the Windows 11 installation page. On this page, we discuss the various ways of installing Windows 11 on your device. There are several different ways to install Windows 11 and we try to cover them all.

  • Installing the Windows 11 Insider Preview
  • Installing Windows 11 on Hyper-V
  • Installing Windows 11 on VMware
  • Installing Windows 11 on Parallels
  • Installing Windows 11 on Bootcamp
  • Installing Windows 11 on Virtualbox


You can download Windows 11 here but here are the ways to install Windows 11.

Microsoft Logo Windows 11 install

Installing the Windows 11 Insider Preview

Here are the steps you should follow if you want to get the trial version of Windows 11 on your PC via authorized Microsoft developer channels.

  1. Sign up for the Windows Insider Program by going to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Insider Program. And then, press Register and Sign Up. If you’re already a part of the Windows Insider community, you can sign in to your account and click Start flighting.
  2. Review the Privacy Statement and terms appearing on your screen and click Submit.
  3. Select Dev Channel from the Insider settings to download and install the current Windows 11 build meant for Windows Insider Preview and hit the Confirm button.
  4. Your machine will now ask you to Read the Microsoft Insider Privacy Statement and Agreement. Once you have reviewed the statement and terms, click on Confirm.
  5. Now, press Restart Now to restart your machine to get the Insider Preview build.
  6. After restarting, make sure you are connected to an active Internet connection. You can then go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and click the Check for updates button.
  7. Your PC will start downloading the latest build from a Microsoft server.

 

Hyper-V Windows 11 Final

Installing Windows 11 on Hyper-V

  1. First, enable the Hyper-v feature on your Windows 10 to start using this Microsoft hypervisor program., For that, right-click on the Windows 10 start button and select Windows Powershell (Admin).
  2. Copy-paste the below-given command and hit the Enter key – Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
  3. Restart the system after that.
  4. Open Hyper-V and click on the New option given on the right side and then “Virtual Machine”.
  5. Create a new Win 11 hyper V virtual machine
  6. Name the VM you are about to create such as “Windows 11“. This will also use to identify the machine in Hyper-V Manager. And then click on the “Next” button.
  7. After that select Generation 2 for the VM.
  8. Next, add the amount of RAM/Memory you want to provide to your Windows 11 install, this should be at least 4GB or more for optimum usage.
  9. Click on the Connection Drop-down box and select “Default Switch” to provide network connectivity to VM. Select Default network Switch
  10. Create a Virtual hard disk for Windows 11 installation, Everything will be set already, however, still you can change (increase to decrease) the size of the Hard disk you want to assign Windows 11.
  11. Add Windows 11 bootable ISO image. Microsoft officially doesn’t yet provide a Windows 11 ISO image but here’s where to ownload the latest updated Windows 11 ISO.
  12. Once you have the ISO image, select “Install an operating system from a bootable image file“.
  13. Set WIndows 11 ISO as bootable medium
  14. Finally, click on the “Finish” button.
  15. Start Windows 11 Hyper-V Virtual machine – The created VM will appear on the Hyper-V Manager, either double click on it or select the same and click on the Start option.
  16. Start Hyper V virtual machine – Once the VM is started to access it, select the VM and click on the “Connect” option from the right side menu.
  17. From here you will get the regular Windows installation wizard. Just follow it to install the OS.
  18. When it asks for a Serial key, select “I don’t have a product key“.
  19. Choose the edition of the Windows 11 operating system you want to install.
  20. Select the “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)“.
  21. Let the default Virtual hard disk be selected and simply click on the “Next” button.
  22. Start installation
  23. Once the installation is completed, you will have Windows 11 running on your Windows 10 Hyper-v.

vmware logo installing Windows 11

Installing Windows 11 on VMware

  1. Download and install VMware Workstation Player. It’s a free download for non-commercial use.
  2. Create a Windows 10 ISO file if you don’t have one already. You can do this by using the Windows Media Creation tool and choosing ISO file as the output. Make sure you select the version of Windows (Home, Pro, etc) you have a product key for.
  3. Select a New Virtual Machine from the Player->File menu in VMWare Workstation Player.
  4. Select the location of your Windows 10 ISO file when prompted and click Next.
  5. Name your virtual machine anything you want and click Next.
  6. Set the maximum disk size to at least 64GB and choose “Store virtual disk to one file.” Then click Next.
  7. Click Customize Hardware.
  8. Increase the RAM to at least 4GB (4096MB), preferably 8GB. Click Close.
  9. Click Finish and make sure “Power on this virtual machine…” is checked.
  10. Press a key to boot off of the ISO, which the VM thinks is a DVD. If you’re not fast enough, you can select Power->Restart from the Player menu.
  11. Follow the prompts to install Windows 10. Be sure to enter your product key and Select Custom Install when prompted to choose between Custom and Upgrade.
  12. Click Install Tools and then install the VMWare graphics driver from the virtual optical drive.
  13. Join the Windows Insider Program on the virtual machine. To do that, Navigate to Settings->Update & Security->Windows Insider Program and click Get started.
  14. Select the Dev Channel and click Confirm. Follow the prompts to confirm again and restart your virtual machine.
  15. Click Check for Updates under Settings->Update & Security->Windows Update. At this point, the Windows 11 Insider Preview should start downloading and installing. It could take quite a while, depending on your download speed.
  16. Reboot your PC when prompted.

Parallels logo installing Windows 11

Installing Windows 11 on Parallels

Parallels have confirmed they are working to bring Windows 11 compatibility to macOS. Parallels confirmed that the team is doing “everything that’s possible” to bring Windows 11 to macOS. A quote from Nick Dobrovolskiy, SVP of Engineering and Support:

“Since Windows 11 has just been announced recently, the Parallels Engineering team is waiting for the official Windows 11 Insider Preview build to start studying changes introduced in the new OS to deliver full compatibility in future Parallels Desktop updates.”

Bootcamp logo installing Windows 11

Installing Windows 11 on Bootcamp

  1. First of all, you need to mount Windows 10 ISO image. For that, Right-click on the Windows 10 ISO Image, select Open with > Disk ImageMounter. Doing this will open the window showing you all the files available in the ISO image.
  2. Select all file, right-click and then select “Copy 8 items“.
  3. Create a new folder on the desktop. For that, right-click and select New Folder. You name it Build or anything according to your choice.
  4. Open the new folder, right-click and select Paste 8 items.
  5. Now unmount the Windows 10 ISO image. For that, right-click and select Eject.
  6. Following the step one, you need to mount ISO image of Windows 11. Right-click > Open With > Disk ImageMounter. The window containing all the files and folder of ISO image will appear.
  7. Open Source folder and look for a file with name Install.wim. Once you find it, right-click, select Copy Install.wim from the menu, and then temporarily paste it on the desktop.
  8. Right-click on the Install.wim file on the desktop, then select Get info.
  9. In the Get info window, you need to head over to Name & Extension. Here, you need to find Install.wim. You need to edit and rename it to Install.esd.
  10. Once done, hit enter. A warning dialog box will appear, click Use .esd. After that, close the Get info window. Doing this will change Install.wim file to Install.esd.
  11. Next, you need to open Build folder that we have created above. Open the Sources folder, look for Install.esd file.
  12. Once you find it, right-click and select Move to Trash.
  13. To achieve this, you will be asked for a user account password, enter it to complete the process.
  14. After that, you need to copy-paste the install.esd file (the one that we renamed from install.wim to install.esd) from Windows 11 and paste it to Build folder.
  15. When a dialog box appear, click Authenticate and then again enter the account password to confirm the action.
  16. At this point, you have successfully created a Windows 11 files that are required to complete the installation of Windows 11.
  17. Open ISO Make app i.e. AnytoISO and in the tool switch to Folder to ISO.
  18. Click on the Browse for folder button and select the Build folder available on the desktop, click Open.
  19. Now, click on the Make ISO button.
  20. Wait for few seconds so that AnytoISO can create an ISO image of Windows 11. When ISO is done, this is how it looks like:
  21. Next, you need to click on the Go > Utilities.
  22. From Utilities folder, you need to launch Boot Camp Assistant.
  23. In the Boot Camp Assistant window, click on Continue button.
  24. Here, you need to select Boot Camp partition size. You need 64 GB or larger storage device.
  25. After that, click on Choose button next to the ISO image option and select the ISO image of Windows 11 that we have created using AnytoISO above, click Open.
  26. Next, click on Install button.
  27. Now Boot Camp Assistant will connect to an internet connection and start downloading all the files, apps, and drivers required for the proper functioning of Windows 11.
  28. You will be asked to enter the password.
  29. Now your device will reboot and start the installation of Windows 11 on your Mac. During the installation, you will see following screen:
  30. Setup screen where you need to enter language, time and currency, and Keyboard or input method, click Next.
  31. Product key screen, where you need to enter the product key or skip it for later, click Next.
  32. Select edition of Windows 11 that you would like to install on your Mac, click Next.
  33. Accept terms and conditions, click Next.
  34. Windows 11 installation screen will appear. Here, you need to wait for installation to complete.
  35. Once done, system will reboot.
  36. Next, you need will see the new OOBE screen of Windows 11. Again enter the details depending on your requirements.
  37. Select, Region and then click Yes.
  38. Select Internet connection to continue the setup and then click Next button.
  39. Now, you need to fill in some privacy settings. You can manage them later. Once Windows 11 setup is done on your device, you will see the Windows 11 Homescreen.
  40. After that, you need to open Boot Camp Assistant from background and then click Next,
  41. Here, select that you Accept the license agreement and then click Install button. Doing this will start installing all the important files, apps, and drivers require for properly working of Windows 11 in Mac.
  42. Once done, you need to check the box for “Restart System (recommended)” and then Finish. Your device will reboot and this completes the installation of Windows 11 on Mac.

Virtualbox logo installing Windows 11

Installing Windows 11 on Virtualbox

  1. First, Download and Install the Oracle VM VirtualBox application on your PC/ Computer or Laptop. And download link for Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris, and OpenSolaris is here. Once the .exe file is downloaded, double click on it and then follow the on-screen instruction and Install it properly.
  2. Virtualbox Extension Pack is a great utility provided by Oracle corporation. This actually really helps in improving and adding additional features to the Virtualbox machine. By installing this plugin you can get features like Drag & Drop, Mouse Integration, Internet Connectivity, USB support, and many other awesome features like this.
  3. And to install the extension pack file, double-click on the downloaded file and then click on Install.
  4. Once both the files Virtualbox app and Extension pack are installed on your PC, now open the Virtualbox.exe file from the desktop.
  5. Now on the right-hand side section, click on the New icon to create Windows 11 virtual machine in Virtualbox.
  6. Now a dialog box of Name and operating system will open up, now enter the Name of the virtual machine and type of OS & its version. Since we want to install Windows 11 on Virtualbox virtual machine, so type Name as “Windows 11 VM“, select the Type as Microsoft Windows and version as Windows 10 (64-bit). Now click on Next.
  7. Once you have created the Win 11 virtual machine, now it’s time to allocate virtual machine RAM Memory. And for Windows 11 the recommended memory size is 4Gb or 4096 MB. So adjust the slider and then click on Next.
  8. Once you have allocated the RAM memory for the virtual machine, now it’s time to create a virtual hard drive. Now under the Hard disk section, select “Create a virtual hard disk now” and then click on Create.
  9. After that under the Hard disk file type section, select VDI (Virtualbox Disk Image) as file type and then click on Next.
  10. Now under the Storage on physical hard disk section, select Dynamically allocated as storage type and then click on Next.
  11. After that select the File location and size of the virtual hard drive and then click on Create. ( Please check the location of file has enough free space )
  12. Now you have successfully created the Win 11 virtual machine and it is ready to use. But before running it we need to do some basic settings.
  13. Now here we will do some basic settings like Processors, Display Memory, USB Ports, and Windows Boot Settings. So click select the Windows 11 Virtual machine and then click on the Settings icon.
  14. And now comes the Storage Settings part which is very important for the installation of Windows 11. Now under the Storage Devices section, click on the Empty CD icon. After that on the right-hand side section, click on the CD icon and then click on Choose a disk file… ( Basically this will help you to directly boot from ISO file instead of using USB to boot. )
  15. After that browse your computer directory and then navigate to the Windows 11 ISO Image File and then select & click on Open. ( Here you can also use the Insider Preview ISO Image )
  16. And Done! All the settings part is done and your Windows 11 Virtualbox virtual machine is ready to run.
  17. Note:- Before installing it, please checkout is your PC follows minimum requirements for Win 11.
  18. Now Open the Virtualbox Manager and then select the Windows 11 VM machine and then click on Start.
  19. Now it will start loading the Windows OS setup files. After that follow all the on screen instructions according to your preferences and Install it properly.
  20. Now, you will see that Windows 11 is running on Virtualbox.