Upgrade to Windows 11 for free?

[The_Doc_Man]

It depends on whether your Win 11 was an upgrade to an existing Win 10 or whether it was an original install, perhaps. Mine was an original install because it was a replacement system. The old machine kind of died ugly.

 

[June7]

On the PC I just checked, upgrade wiped away everything, like an original install. This was my first go at upgrade. Still no sign of Bitlocker after restart.

The other PC I chose option to not wipe apps or user settings. I will now have to go check out these settings on that one.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

If I recall correctly, when I did the Win7 to Win10 upgrade, I had to do an "original install" as well so had to handle backup restoration then, too.

 

[Gasman]

If you have Home version, I do not think gpedit.msc exists?, though you can download it.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

There's More!

 

[AccessBlaster]

If you have Home version, I do not think gpedit.msc exists?, though you can download it.

If you find a link to gpedit.msc let us know. I believe the group policy editor is the only major difference between Pro and Home.

 

[KitaYama]

If you find a link to gpedit.msc let us know. I believe the group policy editor is the only major difference between Pro and Home.

Windows 11 Home version has group policy disabled. There are several ways to enable it.

Note:
Be careful. Any possible way to add group policy to Home version of Windows can break things. Because it's unsupported.
Any way you use, either by installing or enabling the built-in one, It doesn't unlock all group policies—some settings won't apply because required services or registry support are missing in Home edition

Enabling Group policy with script:
Save the following as *.cmd and then run it with admin privilege. (Right click and select Run As Administrator)
It takes a few minutes to be finished.
I've never tested it. It's from a previous discussion with our IT team. No guarantee at all.

@echo off
pushd "%~dp0"
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~3*.mum >gp.txt
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >>gp.txt
for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . gp.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\%%i"
pause

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I don't recall actually having to download the gpedit.msc file. But of course I could have simply forgotten. Since I was running an original install rather than an upgrade, I don't know if that could make a difference. But I didn't do an upgrade.

 

[KitaYama]

Here's the download link for Group policy for home version

Download Group Policy Editor for Windows 10 & 11 Home Edition - MajorGeeks

Group Policy Editor for Windows 10 Home Edition contains the setup for Group Policy Editor as well as a batch file to install and get it working in Windows 10 Home so that Start, Run, gpedit.msc works properly.

www.majorgeeks.com

 

[Gasman]

If you find a link to gpedit.msc let us know. I believe the group policy editor is the only major difference between Pro and Home.

I really cannot remember how I did it, as it was on my other laptop and a good few years ago.
See if this still works.

Redirecting

Edit: I can confirm the above method works.