Registry settings for upgrading to Windwos 11

Question

I'm hoping to push Windows 11 to compatible devices in my domain. We do not use InTune or SCCM; we have an update management utility I'd like to use and I've been lead to believe I can prompt devices to upgrade to Windows 11 by setting their Targeted Release Version in RegEdit.

The PowerShell commands I've tried using to edit the targeted release version are:

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" -Name 'TargetReleaseVersion' -PropertyType REG_DWORD -Value 1  
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" -Name 'TargetReleaseVersionInfo' -PropertyType REG_MULTI_SZ -Value '21H2'  

This has been ineffective thus far and I may have the wrong PropertyType on the commands. Is anyone experienced with specifying Windows 11 as the Targeted Release Version via RegEdit?

Answer 1

I can't comment from experience on the effectiveness of this as a solution for upgrading to Win 11, quick google suggests there could be 3 entries which are needed. You are correct in your PropertyTypes, they just need amending:

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" -Name 'TargetReleaseVersion' -PropertyType DWord -Value 1  
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" -Name 'TargetReleaseVersionInfo' -PropertyType String -Value '21H2'  
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" -Name 'ProductVersion' -PropertyType String -Value 'Windows 11'  

Details for those PropertyTypes can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/new-itemproperty?view=powershell-7.2

Answer 2

Hello

Thank you for your question and reaching out. I can understand you are having query related to Windows 11 upgrade using registry.

Please note that Windows 11 is completely new Major version with lots of security features of Windows and It can not be pushed via registry settings.

Hence in your case Please update Windows 11 via below methods.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e

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