Back in May, I received an old server with an ASUS Z9PA-D8 motherboard. I first tried to get it working without success. I couldn’t even get the BIOS to boot. I came here to to the WH site and got some good advice. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the motherboard working. Like I said in my previous post, I wasn’t going to throw any more money into a 12 year old motherboard. Since then, I was able to find a newer motherboard (ASUS WS Z390 Pro) that was also Windows 11 compatible. Got the motherboard installed and was able to boot the BIOS. Just doing that felt like a win for this beginner.
So here’s my dilemma. I was able to go into the BIOS and verify that the TPM was active (yes) and that everything appeared to be running and ready to install Windows 11 Pro. Going to the Microsoft site, I purchased the Windows 11 Pro license and went to download a copy from the Microsoft Site (Download Windows 11). There, I was given 3 options.
Option 1: Requires a current version of Windows 10 for a simple upgrade to Windows 11 using the Windows 11 download assistant. The only copy of Windows 10 that I have is on my Synology DSM that uses the Synology Virtual Machine Manager. I am installing this on a new motherboard with no OS installed yet.
Option 2: Use Windows Installation Media. I was able to download this one and actually getting it started with the installation. Unfortunately, when I got to the licensing key, It said that it was not able to install that version. I am guessing, but I think that Option 2 was only to install the home version, not the Pro version.
That left me with option 3: Download Windows 11 Disc Image (ISO). This says that the ISO is multi-edition and that the correct edition would be unlocked using the license key.
This is where I get stuck. I can download the ISO to a flash drive. Heck I even tried downloading it to a 2tb external SSD. Both downloaded with no problem. Trying to open it through MacOS, haven’t figured out how to create a bootable drive that can be recognized by the motherboard. Using F8 to bring up the drives on the motherboard, I can select the flash drive (and the SSD in later attempts) but all I get is “Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device and press a key”.
This where everything grinds to a halt.
So my beginner question is: How do I install Windows 11 Pro using the ISO download without having another Windows machine?
Get on YouTube and search for bootable windows 11 disk/USB. Also lookup the ones that show you how to bypass the stupid crap Microsoft forces on you, basically an unattended install, with a “local” user, and not a Microsoft account. I personally do not see the need to force people to use these types of accounts, but I think it’s because the next version or so will be subscription based.
I think you’ll use etcher, it’s been awhile since I loaded 11, but getting ready to do it again, the latest batch was supposed to fix some AMD issues, but made mine worse, my games lagged horribly. The roll back messed things up.
Chris Titus has a great powershell app to debloat windows 10-11.
Thank you for the info. I’ll start looking for it and try to figure it out.
Thanks again.
The Chris Titus Windows Debloat script works great. I used it on all family friends machines and they are not know it used.
I finally was able to get Windows 11 Pro installed using the Media Creation Tool and a virtual machine copy of Windows 10. I was getting an error message that was telling me that my hardware wasn’t configured properly. I was trying to install the OS onto a hard drive without success. I ended up adding two 1tb NVME sticks. Once doing that, I was able to install the OS.
Thanks to all of you that made suggestions.