Fix: “This PC Can’t Run Windows 11” Error In VirtualBox

Earlier today, I had to install a Windows 11 Insider Preview build in VirtualBox to experience the new features and options offered in the recent Insider builds.

During the Windows 11 installation, just after selecting the edition, I encountered a “This PC can’t run Windows 11. This PC does not meet the minimum system requirements to install this version of Windows” error message. Because of the error, I could not install Windows 11 in VirtualBox until I managed to bypass the system requirements check.

The error message shows up when the Windows 11 installer finds that PC’s and VirtualBox’s configurations do not meet the Windows 11 minimum system requirements.

Before we tell how to resolve the error by forcing the installer to bypass all the checks, let’s look at the Windows 11 minimum system requirements.

Windows 11 system requirements

• 1 GHz or faster two core 64-bit compatible processor
• 4 GB or more RAM
• 64 GB or larger storage space
• UEFI, Secure Boot capable system firmware
• TPM 2.0
• A graphics card compatible with DirectX 12 or later with WDDM 2.0 driver

You can use the official Health Check app to check if your PC meets the hardware requirements.

The “This PC cannot run Windows 11” error shows up when one of the system requirements mentioned above are not available.

Bypass Windows 11 system requirements check to fix “This PC cannot run Windows 11” error in VirtualBox

Step 1: When you get the “This PC cannot run Windows 11” error, clock the error dialog (Windows Setup dialog). You will get the “Are you sure to quite?”. Click on the Yes button.

Step 2: Now, you will see the “Install now” screen. When you are at this screen, simultaneously press the Shift + F10 keys to open the Command Prompt window.

Step 3: In the Command Prompt window, type regedit and hit the Enter key to open the Registry Editor. You may now close the Command Prompt.

Step 4: In the left pane of Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup

Step 5: Now, perform a right-click on the Setup key, click New, and select the Key option. Name the new key as LabConfig.

Step 6: In the left pane, select the LabConfig key.

Step 7: On the right side, perform a right-click, click New, and select the DWORD (32-bit) Value option. Name the new value as BypassSecureBootCheck.

Double-click on the newly created BypassSecureBootCheck value and change its value data from the default 0 to 1. This will ensure that the Secure Boot check will be skipped during the installation.

Step 8: Next, once again, right-click, click New, click DWORD (32-bit) Value, and then name it as BypassTPMCheck.

Again, double click on it and then changes its value data to 1 to skip the TPM 2.0 requirement check.

Step 9: Next, right-click again, click New and then DWORD (32-bit) Value and name the new value as BypassCPUCheck. Double click on it and set 1 as its value data. If your CPU supports Windows 11, you can skip this step.

Step 10: Perform a right-click again, select New, and then select DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as BypassRAMCheck. Then, double-click on its entry and set the value data from 0 to 1. Note that you can skip this step is you have allocated more than 4 GB of RAM for the Windows 11 virtual machine.

We have configured the Windows Registry to bypass CPU, RAM, TPM 2.0, and Secure Boot checks. So, it’s time to resume the Windows 11 installation.

Step 11: Close the Registry Editor. Click on the Install now button to continue installing Windows 11 without the error. Follow the usual on-screen directions to complete installing Windows 11.

How to boot from bootable USB in the VirtualBox guide might also interest you.