In this video I start out with a virtual Windows Vista PC and upgraded it to Windows 11 via Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
More details on my blog [ Ссылка ]
With Windows 11 being 64bit only and wanting to do only in place upgrades this meant I had to start out with a 64bit OS. Microsoft released a 64bit version of Windows XP but that wasn’t upgradable, so I had to start with Windows Vista (x64).
Then it was a case of install Vista SP1 and then an upgrade to Windows 8, Windows 8.1 followed by Windows 10. For virtualisation I am using Microsoft Hyper-V and Vista only works on Generation 1 virtual machines whereas Windows 11 only works with Generation 2 machines.
There is no upgrade path from Gen 1 to Gen 2 so converted the disk layout to GPT using the command.
Then I created a new Gen 2 virtual machine and mounted the existing hard drive, once I enabled TPM 2.0 and secure boot I installed Windows 11.
So, there you go, Windows Vista to Windows 11 with in place upgrade and no loss of any files or performing a clean install. This was all just for the sake of doing it rather than a real-world example, but it shows it is possible!
