Upgrading other computer to Windows 11

[MOoD90s 0]

I discussed upgrading my other computer in the thread Stuck on upgrading CPU cooler. After I was done with that I upgraded my other computer.
I am not asking a question in this post. I am just documenting what I have done. If anyone has any questions or comments I will try to respond to them

The computer called Lightning has had a long-convoluted history starting in 2009. It has had two other motherboards before 2024. It started with Windows 7 Ultimate (32-biit) but a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate (64-biit) was done a few years later. In 2016 or 2017 it received a free upgrade to Windows 10 Professional (64-bit). BTW, keeping with its name the first version was hit by lightning in 2011 leading to a rebuilt in 2013.



I had tried to clone the first two SSDs to the two new ones but that failed. I decided that was impossible anyways because I wanted to enable Secure Boot which wasn’t compatible with the way the computer was booting previously. Doing this also eliminated installing Windows 7 again which was OK.

Note I did a standard installation of Windows 11 with no workarounds except bypassing the requirement for a Microsoft account.

Get ready for upgrade (Computer Lightning)

• Replace Ryzen 1700X with Ryzen 3700X
• In BIOS reset TPM for new CPU
• Boot into Windows 10 to verify change
• Shut down computer
• Remove old SATA SSDs
• Install XPG M.2 NVME SSD
• Install StarTech M.2 PCIe SSD Adapter
• Install Intel M.2 NVME SSD
• Boot into BIOS
• Enable Secure Boot
• Shut down computer

Get Windows 11 setup (Computer DarkMatter)

• Download Media Creation Tool
• Run Media Creation Tool
• Create setup for Windows 11 25H2 on flash drive

Clean install for Windows 11 Pro 25H2 (Computer Lightning)

• Note: network was connected
• Boot from Windows 11 25H2 on flash drive
• When the screen came up to select the country I entered the following:

SHIFT+F10
start ms-cxh:localonly

Click to expand...

• A screen came up to create a local account
• After creating and answering three security questions I was taken to the desktop

After first boot

• I installed the latest motherboard drivers from ASUS
• I installed the the Nvidia app which downloaded the latest graphics driver
• Since I was using a local account OneDrive was installed but not setup. I uninstalled OneDrive to keep it from taking over.
• Also, since I was using a local account BitLocker was only partially setup. I Disabled it in the Windows settings. Note BitLocker unencrypted my C: drive before it shut down.
• I will continue to reinstall all the software and games I had previously installed. That should take a few days.

Here is a photo of inside the computer. You can see the Corsair 120mm water cooler on the left. It was really easy to install. Note I bought the cooler in April 2017.