Ditching Windows 10? Here's how I installed Windows 11, removed AI, and stripped out unnecessary features using Flyoobe

How-To
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Install Windows 11 on anything

Flyoobe
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Windows 10 is set to go end-of-life (EOL) on October 14, and while you can purchase an extended service license to keep your machine updated for a little longer, some will ultimately choose to upgrade to Windows 11. But what if your machine doesn’t meet Microsoft’s requirements? You can get around them quite easily with Rufus or the focus of this how-to, Flyoobe.

Originally known as Flyby11, Flyoobe touts itself as “A better way to set up Windows,” and it has an expansive set of features that should make Windows 11 a much better experience on more modest hardware.

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Les Pounder
Les Pounder
Associate Editor

Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".

28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sheakev
    I've used an earlier version on several of my machines. I was able to update all of them. Glad you wrote such a thourough article.
    My hope is that when the next major upgrade to windows11 comes out shortly that my machines will upgrade.
    Also, I contributed to the author via p@yp@l three times. This software has been a lifesaver.
    Reply
  • computerdave911
    Admin said:
    Flyoobe offers a convenient way to install Windows 11 on computers that don’t meet Microsoft’s requirements. But that’s not all. Flyoobe can also be used to tweak Windows 11, remove AI components, and get the best Windows 11 experience on even elderly hardware.

    Ditching Windows 10? Here's how I installed Windows 11, removed AI, and stripped out unnecessary features using Flyoobe : Read more
    rumor is they will end security updates to 11 on unsupported hardware after 10 ends,, i enrolled my win 10 pc for free yesterday good till oct 2026 now, its free now, just need to create another user account and sign in to it with a microsoft account or change your user if want,, and i got the enroll link under check for updates after 2 hours ,
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    I would personally want to review the source and build from source if I was to use a 3rd party application to install an operating system, but the process looks promising.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Much of what I see can already easily be done in Windows, you're just basically pre-configuring instead of post-configuring, and I'm not seeing anything in the article that would make it "run better on modest hardware". Perhaps provide benchmarks to back that claim up, and a disclaimer if this is a sponsored article?
    Reply
  • Rob1C
    I think that this article should mention that with old hardware, especially 10 year old hardware (which probably had Win8 pre-installed), you're probably better off with Windows 10; especially since you can extend your security updates for a year, for free.

    Windows 11 will be a burden on the old hardware and make your computer run slower, unless you are using it for gaming and need DirectStorage support (which can work under Windows 10, but is less compatible than running DS under Windows 11).

    If you don't really even need Windows at all, there's:
    https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/ive-tried-many-linux-distros-designed-to-look-and-feel-like-windows-but-linuxfx-is-the-best-ive-tested-yet
    Run Linux that has the Windows 11 desktop experience, which is fine if you are just going to surf, write, and email - not much of a learning curve, if any. Running under Linux will be much faster, whether on old or new hardware. Also, there are Windows emulators that run under Linux, but don't expect all Win11 games to work.

    Really, if your laptop is 10 years old, it's probably time to retire it, use it just for simple tasks (browsing and email), and buy a new computer for gaming or AI applications (relying on a modern GPU). There often comes a point where a small amount of money saved is replaced by a lot of time spent waiting and messing with things that are going out of date.
    Reply
  • stonecarver
    As a Windows 11 user from week one of release back in 2021 and on even a 2009 Dell XPS 9100 1366 system you would think oh no way would that old of a PC even handle Windows 11 I mean when was the last time someone bought a 1366 system new!

    I bring up that system for its age as I have many computers all across the landscape of time from the 2009 Dell to current new systems.

    Window 11 has had not one glitch on any of the so called out of date hardware and sometime actually works better on Windows 11 than Windows 10.

    And the only thing that has stopped the 2009 Dell 1366 system is a few games that AVX-2 instructions.

    Window 11 works like butter on all my stuff old or not.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    computerdave911 said:
    rumor is they will end security updates to 11 on unsupported hardware after 10 ends,, i enrolled my win 10 pc for free yesterday good till oct 2026 now, its free now, just need to create another user account and sign in to it with a microsoft account or change your user if want,, and i got the enroll link under check for updates after 2 hours ,
    Unless you have some documentation from MS, "rumor is" is useless speculation.

    At the pre and early release of Win 10, there were all sorts of "rumors" flying around that turned out to be totally untrue.
    Reply
  • russell_john
    You cannot remove some of the AI because it has been baked into the Kernel code since 24H2 ......
    Reply
  • jackt
    OR INSTALL LINUX !
    Reply
  • CParsons
    jackt said:
    OR INSTALL LINUX !
    Is the Year of Linux finally upon us?

    Gp-CaTlxjLYView: https://youtu.be/Gp-CaTlxjLY
    Reply