Run Windows 11 on a Raspberry Pi 4
YOU’LL NEED THIS
A RASPBERRY PI 4 (4GB OR 8GB RAM) Internet connection Spare flash drive
Infinite patience
THERE’S NOTHING WRONG with the Raspberry Pi OS. But it is a bit basic and smells of Linux. So why not replace it? There are desktop options, such as Ubuntu, RISC-OS, and RaspBSD; gaming options such as RetroPie and Lakka; and media center choices such as OpenELEC or OSMC. And then there’s Windows. Or rather, there isn’t. While a version of everyone’s favorite operating system exists that will run on the Pi’s ARM architecture, it’s neither readily available nor officially compatible. However, you can still get it to run on the accommodating little board.
With Windows 11 bedding in, it’s time to upgrade both software and method to get Microsoft’s latest and greatest running on the Raspberry Pi 4. It’s not perfect—you won’t get any life out of the Pi’s onboard Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or GPIO pins. Audio doesn’t work over HDMI, and you get the occasional ‘pop’ through the headphone jack. The Ethernet port and all the USBs do work, however, so if you aren’t near a wired internet connection, a USB wireless adapter can be pressed into service. –IAN EVENDEN
1
PREPARATION
Format your micro SD card, or whatever external drive you’re going to install Windows on. It will be reformatted as FAT32 during the copying process, but this step just blanks it off and means you’re more likely to look at its contents for anything you might want to keep. Download the Windows on Raspberry Imager from https://www.worproject.ml/downloads (version 2.2.2 is now available) and extract the zip into a folder on your desktop called something like Win11—the important thing is that there are no spaces in the name.
2
GET AN ISO
Obtaining a Windows 11 ARM ISO isn’t quite as straightforward as getting an X86 build. Point your browser to https://uupdump.net/ and look for a Windows 11 Insider Preview for the ARM64 architecture—a beta build if you can see one, they are more stable than the dev channel builds. Click on it, select your language, choose a version (either Home or Pro), and click Next. On the next screen, choose “Download and convert to ISO” then click “Create download package” [ Image A]. A small zip will download. Extract it, and run the uup_download_windows.cmd file as an Administrator. This will trigger all sorts of security warnings but choose Run Anyway. 3
WAIT
The next step takes a while, depending on the speed of your PC and the fatness of your internet pipe. The script you just ran instructs an open-source multi-connection download service called Aria 2 ( https://aria2.github.io/) to download the
files necessary for installing Windows 11 on ARM and processing them into an ISO file. You’ll find it in the Win11 folder you created once the process is finished (you’ll be prompted to press ‘0’ to exit). Ours is 5.2GB in size.
4
WOR
Open the Windows on Raspberry folder and run WoR.exe [ Image B]. Select your language, then the device you’ll be installing on—Pi 2, 3, 4, or 400 (we’d recommend a Pi 4 or 400, and then rather than installing the OS onto an SD card, put it on a USB-connected SSD of some sort). To make your Pi bootable, you’ll need to have updated to the latest version of the bootloader. If you’re not sure how to do this see Boxout 2. Choose your Pi and
the target drive, then click Next. On the next screen, you’ll need to find your ISO. Point it to the file, or drag and drop, then wait for a moment while it mounts. Click next, then choose the latest package of drivers (the recommended option) when prompted. Accept the license agreement, then hit Next. For the firmware, choose the recommended option of the latest available. There will be a short break for a download and then press Next again. You’ll then see a configuration overview. Press Next if you’re happy, and Install on the next page. Sit back and wait [ Image C].
5
START AGAIN, MAYBE?
This is far from a foolproof process. Our first attempt stalled at 81 percent, then refused to re-mount the ISO once we’d quit and reopened the app without a complete restart of our PC. We discovered another script in the same folder that cleared out the remains of mounted images, and this (run as an Administrator) allowed the process to begin again. We ended up running the Aria 2 script again, this time choosing Windows 11 Home over Pro, and trying to install it on a different drive. Eventually, we were successful.
6
BOOT
Put the USB drive into one of the blue USB 3 ports on your Pi, make sure there’s nothing in the microSD card slot, and switch it on. Almost immediately, we saw a raspberry logo and the familiar swirling Windows circle of dots. It stayed on ‘Getting Ready’ long enough for us to start thinking something else had gone wrong. Eventually, it dropped to a plain black screen, which did little to help, but the raspberry logo soon returned and, after being asked to wait ‘ just a moment’, the Windows logo appeared and we began the setup process. Another reboot later and we signed in with a Microsoft Account, went through the privacy nonsense, and eventually got a desktop. You don’t need an image for that, surely.
7
TWEAKS
Restart your Pi and press Esc when prompted to enter the boot menu. Your Pi is being limited by default to 3GB of RAM—for owners of 8GB models, this will not do, and even 4GB would be an improvement. The firmware menu is neatly set out, but don’t be tempted to use the easily accessible CPU frequency settings to attempt a spot of overclocking—it won’t boot if you fiddle with this. What you want is under Device Manager: Raspberry Pi Configuration > Advanced Configuration > Limit RAM to 3GB [ Image D]. Change this from enabled to disabled, then save and exit, and you’ll get a much snappier Windows experience on an 8GB Pi.
8
IN USE
Don’t go expecting this to be anywhere near as speedy as on an Intel chip. Right-clicking the desktop brings it out in a sweat, the spinning cursor visible for a long time before the menu pops up. Clicking on the shortcut for an Explorer window leads to a fivesecond wait before it appears, and the screen resolution seems stuck at 1280x1920, which isn’t the native resolution of any monitor we own (this can be changed in the firmware, Device Manager > Display Configuration, forcing it into 1080p [ Image E]). This is definitely a curio rather than an operating system you’ll want to use every day, even with 8GB of working RAM.