VBox 7: How to upgrade existing Windows 10 VM to Windows 11?

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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MyCatsNameIsBernie
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Dec 2018, 22:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10

VBox 7: How to upgrade existing Windows 10 VM to Windows 11?

Post by MyCatsNameIsBernie »

I am running VBox 7.02 on a MacOS (13.0.1) host. I'm trying to figure out how to upgrade my Windows 10 guest to Windows 11. There's a ton of info available online on how to install a new Windows 11 OS on VBox but almost none on how to do the upgrade.

I started by enabling PAE/NX on the VM, and booting up Win 10.

The Windows 10 PC Health Check app says "This PC doesn't meet Windows 11 system requirements" because:
- This PC must support Secure Boot
- TMP 2.0 must be supported and enabled on this PC

I have two problems trying to do this:
1) When I enable EFI and Secure Boot, the VM boots into the UEFI shell, and I couldn't find any way to boot up Windows 10 with it turned on. I "exit" from the shell, select the virtual disk as the boot drive, "continue" and it goes back into the UEFI shell.
2) If I leave EFI/Secure Boot turned off, and enable TMP 2.0 in the VM, TMP is not detected by the the Win 10 VM.

Is there a way to use VBox to convince Windows 10 that my VBox VM is OK for Win 11, or do I have to resort to the various registry hacks?

Thanks for the help!
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5102
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: VBox 7: How to upgrade existing Windows 10 VM to Windows 11?

Post by BillG »

Did the vm use UEFI before? If it did I would expect it to work now. If it did not, it is a non-trivial task to convert. EFI boot and legacy boot are very different. This is not just a vm problem - you would have the same problem with a physical PC.

Search for Convert legacy to UEFI.
Bill
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