Bottom line: Microsoft surprised the entire PC ecosystem by introducing strict hardware requirements for installing and using Windows 11. While there are various methods and tricks to bypass these restrictions, the company has now removed one of the simplest options.

The recently released Canary Build 27686 of Windows 11 contains an unwelcome surprise for those looking to run the OS on older PCs. A popular and straightforward method for installing Windows 11 on machines with unsupported hardware no longer works, although users still have several alternative options to achieve the same result.

Windows 11 Build 27686 introduces official improvements, including increasing the size limit for FAT32 file systems from 32GB to 2TB, easier HDR content access on compatible displays, and more. However, the preview OS also removes the ability to bypass system requirement checks using the "setup.exe /product server" command, which previously allowed users to install the OS on older hardware.

Microsoft has faced significant criticism for blocking Windows 11 installations on systems without a TPM 2.0 chip. While the core experience of Windows 11 isn't vastly different from Windows 10, the new hardware requirements have led many users with functional Windows 10 systems to avoid upgrading to the new OS.

Over time, many methods have been discovered to bypass the installation requirements of Windows 11 on hardware designed for Windows 10 or even older systems. The "/product server" trick was one of the quickest and easiest, but the upcoming Windows 11 (24H2) release will likely compel resourceful users to find new ways to run the OS on unsupported machines.

Microsoft is also introducing new "hard" compatibility blocks in recent Windows 11 versions, such as the inability to run the OS on CPUs that don't support SSE4.2 instructions. SSE4.2 technology was first introduced by Intel with its Nehalem-based processors in 2008, so any x86-64 CPU manufactured after that year should still be able to load the OS if the setup process is successful.

The number of undocumented or unofficial tricks to force Windows 11 installation continues to dwindle, but Microsoft still offers certain OS editions that effectively bypass the TPM 2.0 requirement. The IoT editions of Windows appear to completely skip the hardware compatibility check, and Windows 11 LTSC 2024 can be installed on systems with less than 4GB of RAM.