Which Insider Preview channel do I need to get Windows 11?

by James McDonald | Jul 17, 2021 | IT Tips, Microsoft Tech Tips | 0 comments

Not working

I first chose "Beta Channel (Recommended)" and did a Check for updates and no Windows 11 option appeared

Working

Then I chose "Dev Channel" and checked for updates and Windows 11 appears!!!

Settings in a VMWare Guest so you can install Windows 11 Insider Preview

I believe you need to have secure boot and a TPM to get Windows 11 installed

I have a Windows 10 Enterprise operating system Virtual Machine on a VMware® Workstation 16 Pro 16.1.2 build-17966106 on a Ubuntu 20.04 Host

Install the VMWare TPM

I have installed the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and enabled the SecureBoot Option in the the Windows 10 VM (requires VM is encrypted)

Enbable UEFI and secure boot

Methods to Check for TPM and Secure Boot

Have discovered in the VM when I run an administrative Powershell session and use Get-Tpm it returns and error

Get-Tpm
Get-Tpm : Object was not found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80090011)
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Tpm
+ ~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-Tpm], TpmWmiException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Tpm.Commands.TpmWmiException,Microsoft.Tpm.Commands.GetTpmCommand

But you can get your TPM status via either tpm.msc or a wmic query

wmic /namespace:\root\CIMV2\Security\MicrosoftTpm path Win32_Tpm get /value
 
IsActivated_InitialValue=TRUE
IsEnabled_InitialValue=TRUE
IsOwned_InitialValue=TRUE
ManufacturerId=1447909120
ManufacturerIdTxt=VMW
ManufacturerVersion=Not Supported
ManufacturerVersionFull20=2.101.0.1
ManufacturerVersionInfo=VMware TPM2
PhysicalPresenceVersionInfo=1.3
SpecVersion=2.0, 0, 1.16

Get-Tpm doesn't work but tpm.msc or wmic query does

Check for Secure boot using a Powershell command

1	`Confirm-SecureBootUEFI`

Turn on Windows Diagnostics

My insider build would not activate until I turned on extra diagnostics. Which were greyed out so I had to change local group policy. (my device is domain and AAD joined).

Option 3 for Allow Telemetry

I also turned on the Connect User Experiences and Telemetry service

I had to reboot a number of times too.