How to upgrade to Windows 11 with BitLocker ALWAYS disabled?

Question

Mt current desktop in Windows 10 has the BitLocker disabled

manage-bde -status

and I doubt that there's no corresponding recovery key in my account. This desktop was second-handed and already had BitLocker disabled at that time, so I made a clean install. I checked my Microsoft account after adding it as a new device, but I found that there's no new recovery key generated.

Now I plan to upgrade to Windows 11 but found that it needs security boot. If I turn on security boot, will it auto enable BitLocker? If so, how to prevent it from happening? Additionally, I heard that upgrading to Windows 11 can also auto enable BitLocker, which is another thing I want to avoid. I checked the Q&A https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2199190/how-to-install-windows-11-24h2-without-bitlocker-e?forum=windowsclient-all&referrer=answers, but I'm not sure whether a USB drive is needed in my case. Is it safe to just run

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BitLocker /v PreventDeviceEncryption /d 1 /t REG_DWORD /f

and then upgrade?

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Q&A forum.

Turning on Secure Boot does not automatically enable BitLocker. Secure Boot is a security feature that ensures only trusted software is loaded during the boot process, while BitLocker is a separate feature that provides encryption for the data on the drive.

Reference Links：https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/data-protection/bitlocker/

I hope the information above is helpful.

Best regards

Zunhui

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