The Windows 11 upgrade

Posted by Taken_out_goose@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 129 comments

One time a friend asked me if I could come over over the weekend and help fix the wifi. I said sure and we agreed on a time and day.

I go over, fix the wifi, nice and easy. I had some freetime left so I asked if he wanted me to upgrade his PC to Win11 since he was still playing on 10.

Oh, it doesn't support 11.

"What do you mean it doesn't support 11?" — I asked. "You built it just a few months ago. It's all new hardware. It should have no problems running 11"

So I checked and sure enough, PC-Healthcheck said it didn't support secure boot.

That's odd — I thought. Checked the motherboard specs. It did support secure boot.

I entered the BIOS, set secure boot instead of legacy and restarted. Didn't boot. Okay? Reverted and booted it back up. Then I tried to check if the boot partition was OK and if everything needed for secure boot was enabled. It was all correct.

Okay, now what? I tried to update the BIOS and it failed. Tried to boot in safe mode. Didn't work.

I tried every I could and I still stared perplexed at the screen for almost an hour.

And then I had the idea to maybe check the partition type on the boot drive. It was MBR.

Turns out, he asked a friend who was "tech savvy" and "regularly did such things" to help build his PC and install Windows on it.

Nobody in their right mind would install Windows with MBR on a modern system in the past decade.

Alright then, quick fix. Admin powershell in winroot. mbr2gpt. Enter BIOS, set secure boot and upgrade.

Lesson learned: never take GPT for granted or assume that the guy who worked on something before you knew what they were doing and didn't make mistakes.

Later I got to meet this friend. Turns out, that he most usually installed cracked versions of Windows for people, for which he needed MBR to install, and my friend had a legitimate key, he used MBR out of habit.

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CzLittle@reddit

Why would you even download cracked windows when you can install the real ones and then activate them after

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thunderbird32@reddit

I will say that lots of folks these days want to run Windows 10 LTSC, and legitimately buying a copy of that has been historically incredibly difficult for the end-user. Only reason I can think of.

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Wendals87@reddit

legitimately buying a copy of that has been historically incredibly difficult for the end-user

Yup because Microsoft only sells them to volume licensed customers.

The only way to get one is to buy a key from someone who has stolen them from the company

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wild_dog@reddit

No there are legitimate resellers that MS list themselves as partners that will sell it to you.

In the EU, ever since Oracle v. Usedsoft in 2012, the supreme court on the EU level has ruled that perpetual licenses are to be treated as a product, not a subscription, Thus the original seller loses some specific types of ownership interests with the sale and can't restrict resale, even if the license says otherwise. You just can't modify them (only sell the full pack if you bought an X-device license pack, can't separate OEM licenses from the device it came with, limited time licenses are a subscription).

As a result, it is 100% legal for an entity with a volume licensieng agreement to buy LTSC licences and then resell those, and multiple resellers do exactly that.

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kiddico@reddit

Eyyy, thank you for the info.

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thunderbird32@reddit

There are guides online. Not sure if it fits the spirit of things, but technically you can do it. IIRC, they require you to setup a volume licensing account which requires I think at least a five or ten license purchase minimum. The trick is to buy one license of Windows 10 LTSC and have the remainder of the required "licenses" be the cheapest CALs you can buy. Not sure if that still works though.

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Mr_ToDo@reddit

I think a while back they remove the traditional volume license management and put it somewhere in the 365. So unless they let you make one of those without a license just for managing the volume stuff you'll also be on the hook for at least one 356 license(I assume they only link to business accounts but I couldn't say for certain)

But 365 business doesn't need much lying about being a business, so if you really want I don't see why getting a license would be impossible

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TheJesusGuy@reddit

But you can easily activate that too

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LaundryMan2008@reddit

My dad has cracked windows and doesn’t even require the key, all activated from the get go and installs much faster

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DoubleOwl7777@reddit

or just use the activation script.

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AdreKiseque@reddit

That's what they're talking about

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WearySignature4531@reddit

Removed bloatware.

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perfectVoidler@reddit

pro comes without bloatware.

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Mx_Reese@reddit

For Windows 10 and previous, yes. Windows 11 pro definitely came with bloatware. For starters Microsoft clearly took money to include a third party antivirus by default, which nobody needs because Windows defender is better, built-in, and free.

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YouSayToStay@reddit

I cannot in good conscience agree with this take.

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WearySignature4531@reddit

Edge and OneDrive. Just to name a couple, definitely come with Pro.

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SabaraOne@reddit

AtlasOS has entered the chat

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dustojnikhummer@reddit

You don't need a cracked ISO for that.

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Shazam1269@reddit

Or never activate it and put up with a watermark and not being able to customize your wallpaper.

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Arient1732@reddit

I have a kinda similar story. I wrote a bash script to automate the installation of a software. It was meant to be run in WSL since most of our users use windows. Now, this particular user contacted me and said that the script wasn't working. I had to install the software manually on their pc. I spent hours debugging only to find that the user had installed WSL 1 instead of WSL 2. My script was written for WSL 2...

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SecretlyCrayon@reddit

But.. But..but you don't need MBR for cracked versions of windows anymore

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

I was expecting the fix to be to enable TPM-emulation (fTPM for AMD or PTT for Intel) - MBR would've taken me a while to find. Good job.

On a related note...

I built a gaming desktop for my son a few years back and when the Win11 upgrade prompts started to show up I just disabled fTPM to make the machine stop meeting the requirements. No prompts except the "Windows 10 is old - you should get a new computer with Windows 11!" nag screens every few days during the last month or two before Win10 went EOL.

The laptop I bought him for school came with Win11, but he wanted to stick with the familiar Win10 he was using on his desktop so when I was upgrading the storage I gave it a clean Win10 install. In October 2025 that Win10 install auto-upgraded itself to Win11, but the experience was less bad after a couple more years of their public alpha test, so he's not asking me to find a way to roll back to 10 and find a way to block it from updating. I expect we'll re-enable fTPM on the gaming rig over the Christmas break when we've got time to let the upgrade play out and tinker everything back into normal functionality.

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TheThiefMaster@reddit

You can set the taskbar to be left-aligned now, which is my biggest complaint with 11 vs 10.

I hope they revert that decision with 12.

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jobblejosh@reddit

My biggest complaints: (look what you made me do)

Horrible soft-play-baby rounded squishiness on every bit of the UI. Windows, buttons, sliders, text, you name it.
Machine Learning included by default
Literally impossible to go through setup without connecting to a network (which means creating a secure build that has never reached the outside world is impossible). You can't even fool it by giving it a neutered connection because it phones home to check.
Data harvesting on a more intense scale and more difficult to turn off
Increased 'user friendliness' resulting in obscuration and obfuscation of actual configuration because everything should autoconfigure and the user might break something
All of the above forced upon you with no easy way to change or switch because 'Mother Microsoft Knows Best' and every user is an idiot who is 1 step away from bricking their machine.

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aj4000@reddit

You forgot the greatest sin of them all...

Can't move the task bar.

I've been using Windows PCs since Windows 95. For all this time I've had my task bar vertical on the right side of the screen. Yeah sure it might sound trivial, but 30-ish years of muscle memory is an absolute bitch. It makes no sense why they'd intentionally remove such a minor customisation option and be so adamant about not adding it back. I shouldn't have to use a 3rd party program or patched explorer to restore something so basic. The best theory I've heard is that the spaghetti code (and now Gen-AI code) holding Win11 together is so fragile that allowing users to move the task bar would break everything. I'll stand my ground on Win10 for as long as I can. And even then I may just suck it up and convert to Linux.

Sorry about the rant...

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

Oh yeah, centre-align means the position of any one icon changes with the number of icons, which undermines that muscle-memory thing where I can identify that the icon for the app I want is in position 6 based on where it is relative to the stuff on my desk under the screen ,and can hit Win+6 to switch to it entirely by intuition. I don't want to have to reach for the mouse or count icons or otherwise stop and think about how to ask the OS to do what I want. There are already intuitive ways to do things and all I ask is that they don't break them.

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koriar@reddit

Oh my god how did I not know about that Win+6 trick?

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

I was imagining that a few people would have a TIL moment while I was typing that comment so that was satisfying to read. Thanks. I remember being shown Win+Number during the Win7 beta but I've never seen anything advertising its existence since then. It's like Win+Shift+Arrows: I think the Win+Arrows shortcuts have been pretty well-known since early W7, but I feel like communication has been poor enough that even power-users don't typically know that Win+Shift+Left/Right will move the window to the neighbouring screen and Win+Shift+Up will stretch the window to the full height of its screen without changing its width. I don't remember what Win+Shift+Down does but I'd expect it to undo Win+Shift+Up.

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koriar@reddit

Win+Shift+Down will un-fullscreen and then minimize the window if you press it a second time (or if the window isn't fullscreen-d)

I usually get people with the Win+Shift ones, Win+Shift+S for the snipping tool, and Ctrl+Win-Left/Right to swap between desktops if you've set up multiple desktops from Win+Tab.

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Nabbottt@reddit

The four easiest places to get your mouse to are the corners of the screen too, putting the most-used button in your os anywhere else just doesn't make sense

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n23_@reddit

I never actually click the start menu button because there's already a dedicated button on the keyboard to open it.

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Stryker_One@reddit

Obligatory.

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

Nice. I actually thought briefly about that comic while writing my comment.

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g1ngerkid@reddit

I didn’t realize that was ever not an option. I’ve been on 11 for years and have been able to left-align.

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paradox183@reddit

It was not an option when 11 first came out.

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AdreKiseque@reddit

All of a sudden the distaste people have for 11 makes a bit more sense...

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

Yeah, between "Window 10 is the last Windows you'll ever... never mind, here comes 11" and the initial release of 11 being disgustingly half-baked, Microsoft really encouraged the anti-11 movement. Maybe it was some cynical 4D-chess move to get media attention?

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AdreKiseque@reddit

Fwiw the "Windows 10 is the last Windows" thing was a single comment from a guy at some internal developer meeting or something that was never meant for the public but got blown out by the media.

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BPDunbar@reddit

Microsoft didn't bother correcting the rumour.

So I think that It's fair to criticise them for not correcting expectations.

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

They made similar remarks about Xbox One at around the same time, IIRC... At least we didn't have to figure out what Windows 10 X and Windows Series S/X were meant to mean.

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Screamline@reddit

Nah, that looks bad imo. Use winhawk and install the mod for centered icons, then yiu can have start on the left without the taskbar icons being nuts to ankles with the start menu

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FlippyReaper@reddit

WindHawk has even some tweaks to make Taskbar, right click context menu a other thinks look like on Win10.

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Mickenfox@reddit

Glad you were able to stay on an OS that was soon going to be unsupported.

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lord_teaspoon@reddit

What a weirdly smug and dumb thing to say. Windows 10 going EOL in 2025 meant I should have let Microsoft push a half-baked Windows 11 on me in 2022?

I'm still trying to find a thing that's changed in 11 that was with changing. Every time I need to change a setting I find yet another basic task that takes more clicks than it used to. Rotate a screen? Instead of opening a dropdown and making a selection, expand a collapsible frame to reveal the dropdown and then open the dropdown and make your selection. Join a wifi network? Instead of clicking the wifi icon in the system tray and then choosing a network, click the combined wifi/audio/power button on the system tray and then click on the wifi icon and then choose a network. It feels like the major motivating factor for Windows 11 was spite for UX engineers.

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No-Inspector1678@reddit

unless its a legacy version of windows (like 7 or xp) dont use mbr

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Flipsii@reddit

Yeah we had a system that was migrated/upgraded forever and still have an MBR Partition. Probably like you, I was very confused when after upgrading the hardware it still told me W11 wasn't supported...

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BillWilberforce@reddit

I'd be careful about offering to upgrade the OS and making other changes to a friend's computer. Especially without being asked to do so.

Because now every problem it has, has become your responsibility.

It was fine before you played around with it......

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charmingpea@reddit

That's such an arcane tip I'm somewhat surprised I even know what you're talking about. My age showing I guess.

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RolandDeepson@reddit

Same. Even unwittingly using MBR sounds like a mistake that I myself am capable of making.

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tinselsnips@reddit

Honestly I'd never even heard of this until the Battlefield kerfuffle.

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jobblejosh@reddit

I had to become acquainted with its complexities when trying to recover a backup of vista to prove a system had a viable recovery/backup solution.

Whole thing would fail every time even with GPT/MBR matched.

Turns out it's because the vendor had implemented Firmware RAID (and if you haven't heard of it, be glad) so it fucked everything.

Maybe I should write a post on it.

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ATJester@reddit

I think BF6 is how most people found out, I had to change my C drive to GPT as well as set secure boot

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Lor1an@reddit

I remember booting up my new computer and going to reformat to gpt just to find out it already was and being pleasantly surprised...

A decent handful of years ago now I remember changing my hard drive to use gpt so I could use those fancy "logical partitions" when installing Lubuntu for the first time.

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Screamline@reddit

I had to convert it on a work laptop cause my boss did not want it wiped and reimaged due to it being a test server. Thank goodness for internet forums, converted and it booted as secure boot then was able to upgrade to win11.

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keigo199013@reddit

Same. When did we get old? >_<

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Daftworks@reddit

I even started to assume it had something to do with the MBR/GPT format

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zhezow@reddit

Yeah, a... "friend".

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wubbalab@reddit

Funny enough: as many know EA forced Javelin Anti-Cheat on us for BF2042 and BF6. It requires Secureboot.

My point is: Their help documentation on the website is actually helpful and mentions the verification and possible modification of the partition table from MBR to GPT.

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Lor1an@reddit

Going in a tech support 'forum' talking about how helpful the kernel level malware installation guide is for walking you through managing your partition tables...

Well, this has been an experience.

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wubbalab@reddit

Yeah it's a wild thought. I was surprised myself to praise EA of all companies for "something".

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FlippyReaper@reddit

I have very similar story - Win 10 installed as MBR but with a twist! Windows itself was installed on 512GB nvme SSD. But the fucking bootloader was installed on the 1TB spinning rust. Why? I don't have a clue. It didn't boot with only SSD or only HDD, it has to be both and you had to even specify HDD in boot order (and there was some kind of fuckery too). His PC was built by guys from IT department where his mother works. Yeah.

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vlad54rus@reddit

If there is already a "Windows Boot Manager" partition on another disk - Windows will automatically reuse it instead of creating a new one on a target disk.

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Ninjacat97@reddit

I actually just set secureboot on mine a few days ago with the exact same problem. The most confusing part was that out of 5 drives, the boot drive (that was only installed like a year ago) was the only one that wasn't GPT. No clue how I managed that.

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Carr0t@reddit

My system claimed for ages to not be Win 11 compatible. MBR vs GPT was something I checked originally, and it was MBR (I first built this machine over a decade ago and have upgraded some components since then, but it's still ooooold at this point), which I think was just because it was a default somewhere back then. Migrated to GPT back then, when Win 11 first came out, but it still claimed no bueno.

It was only when they announced EoL for Win 10 that I dug into it more. Turned out that I was running in 'compatible' or 'legacy' mode on the BIOS, which I'd probably done back in the day because GPT/secure boot/something support on Linux wasn't so great (_particularly_ dual-booting with Windows) and I wanted the ability to potentially dual-boot in future. So even though everything was running with the right settings, it was still _possible_ to run an OS that bypassed those settings/configs.

Once I turned that compatibility mode off so that everything installed _had_ to support the relevant features Win 11 requires, I was able to upgrade with no issue 🎉

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two4arms@reddit

I did this to myself and had to end up updating my BIOS to fix it. The BF 6 open beta was the final push to finally do it.

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DedBirdGonnaPutItOnU@reddit

TBH I use that to PREVENT the Windows 11 update. I fine with Win10, on the Extended Life Support.

We'll see what Microsoft does in a years time.

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savevicleo@reddit

you mean 7 years time? Windows 10 IoT LTSC is supported until 2032

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DedBirdGonnaPutItOnU@reddit

Interesting! I haven't given this much of my time (entered ESU when it was offered for free and got on with my life), so I haven't heard of LTSC.

I just watched a video on how to switch to LTSC if you want the 2 years support and IoT LTSC if you want the 7 years support. Doesn't seem hard. Maybe I'll look into it when ESU end starts looming.

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AskanHelstroem@reddit

Oh boy...that might be the fuckin' reason!!

My girlfriend got a PC, before we became a thing. The specs are fine, but it doesn't support win11...

I did most of the things u mentioned...except for this frickin' last part!

Sooo thx in advance xD

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savevicleo@reddit

Turns out, that he most usually installed cracked versions of Windows for people, for which he needed MBR to install

what? to install "cracked" windows 10, you just install a legit copy freely available from microsoft, then you activate it through very simple and easily googleable means. MBR or GPT shouldn't have any effect on that.

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AdreKiseque@reddit

What? You don't even need to get a "cracked version of Windows" though, it's literally one command to bypass a key? What the hell was this guy doing?

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Kyla_3049@reddit

Don't use MAS as it's illegal, but you just run it after installing a regular copy of Windows.

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RedIce25@reddit

Yep I had this issue when 11 first came out and I tried to upgrade

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ZeroKey92@reddit

Been doing tech support for friends, family, extended family etc. for well over a decade now, coming up on two and never heard of mbr2gpt. Always something new to learn. Could've used that a few weeks ago. Had exactly the same situation. Friend wanted to upgrade his laptop to win11 and it was in MBR for some reason. Not knowing this trick I did a complete backup, re-format and fresh install.

Probably was for the better anyways. System had remnants of win7 on it and had gone through the entire upgrade chain to win10 on the same install. The registry was a mess.

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Runelea@reddit

Oh geez I am amazed he didn't have some weirdarse bugs from the old registry files.

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secrav@reddit

That friend should install legitimate windows copies and use the script from masgrave instead to activate it

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Maxounet02@reddit

I just switched to Linux and Libre Office at home. I know it's not quite as convenient as windows, but I have to say I am glad I did.

You could argue that anything after XP (Maybe 7 if you want to push it?) has not provided any kind of improvement to the system, past perhaps windows defender being actually usable. The rest is fluff, bloat, and forced software.

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Triassic_Bark@reddit

Why would anyone purposely want to switch to Windows 11 at this point? Fuck Microsoft.

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Cakeriel@reddit

Glad support finally ended for 10. No more being forced to install malware from MS.

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Geminii27@reddit

Half that is the Win-11 initial check not picking up the MBR partition and advising about it.

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stinkyfart4u@reddit

There are certainly ways around the hardware limitations of Win11. I don't believe there are ways around still using MBR outside of converting to GPT (I could be wrong)

When it comes to TPM or CPU you can make certain registry changes in order to bypass the hardware checks. I work with someone who went from Win10 to 11 on a 2015 MacBook Air that in no way meets the criteria.

This being said, I have found much better luck with installing a better, lighter OS. I'm a fan of Linux Mint but its not for everyone. There are loads of different OS's out there that could meet particular needs.

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SoItBegins_n@reddit

Maybe his 'tech savvy' friend used ChatMBR.

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stinkyfart4u@reddit

Underrated comment.

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boildkitty@reddit

I've had to upgrade dozens of Win 10 PCs this year. I always check for MBR if it fails PC health check. And i love MBR2GPT. Has some fun with partitions when that fails to convert.

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joshg678@reddit

“Nobody in their right mind would install Windows with MBR on a modern system in the past decade.” -MSP entered the chat

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joshg678@reddit

We’ve used this a lot for server upgrades and compliance.

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PancakeProfessor@reddit

mbr2gpt /validate /disk:0 /allowfullos

I discovered it even upgrading my personal PC to W11 and it has since helped me “save” several old work machines as well. It’s almost unbelievable how easy it is.

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MikeSchwab63@reddit

TPM disabled kept me on 10 for a couple years. Checked, enabled, installed that night.

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SimplifyAndAddCoffee@reddit

Nobody in their right mind would install Windows with MBR on a modern system in the past decade.

I've used it specifically to prevent Windows 10 from trying to upgrade itself to 11. That and turning off the TPM. It works.

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kadivs@reddit

"I asked if he wanted me to upgrade his PC to Win11 since he was still playing on 10."

lol you're a bad friend. Should just have put him on extended support

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APiousCultist@reddit

My last PC just defaulted to MBR (a decade ago). So windows having stupid defaults is always a factor.

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Thulak@reddit

Tbh I would have switched to MBR just to prevent the downgrade to Win 11. Linux does the job better though.

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Dessler1795@reddit

I'm truly surprised Windows has an easy tool to do the trick...

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Silent-G@reddit

I went through this exact same issue and could never get mbr2gpt to work.

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anubisviech@reddit

I just found out about that one today. Switched an old laptop to efi boot 2 hours ago.

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CriticalMine7886@reddit

I just learned reading this - Reddit is my teacher!

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tellmesomeothertime@reddit

Hilariously just encountered this myself a week ago

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Ferro_Giconi@reddit

I'm confused why they thought they needed MBR for cracked versions of Windows. I've never heard of an activator failing because of GPT.

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Stingerbrg@reddit

I had the exact same issue and solution when I upgraded my PC to run 11. When I first built it 8 years ago, windows 10 installed with MBR because that was the default setting.

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TheJesusGuy@reddit

Why did this require a post? This is super basic stuff. Why would cracked windows require MBR? wtf is this

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Mr_Tiggywinkle@reddit

Running MBR is not that rare for people who just kept updating windows each cycle rather than fresh installing.

I knew I was running MBR and didn't give a shit until W11 asked for it.

It still says my PC isnt compatible with windows 11 (despite passing all health checks) but I guess that's a different story.

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publiusvaleri_us@reddit

That's rich. A wonder he didn't install a Western Digital 80 GB paperweight and fill it up, as well.

How do you find a guy who installs cracked versions of Windows? That's so Windows XPish. Does he carry the Devils0wn around DVD, too?

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naylandsmith@reddit

You would have saved time using whynotwin11. It tells you in a clear way what you need: CPU compatibility, GPT, TPM, secure boot, boot method...

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FlippyReaper@reddit

Microsoft even has official app PC Health Check for checking compatibility. I had to use it for forcing Win11 update after enabling TPM on work PCs, because Control update still said it's unsupported HW

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Taken_out_goose@reddit (OP)

Imma just save that for later

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bigmonmulgrew@reddit

When reading this I had to think back to how far it was I last used mbr. How has someone even done that. Windows has been doing most of the partitioning for you for several versions now. This person has put significant effort into doing something dumber.

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JNSapakoh@reddit

eeh, if the friend who built it just transferred his old drive to the new PC so they didn't have to reinstall windows then running in legacy/MBR makes sense

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lbstv@reddit

I had the same problem on my dad's pc. However I had set it up myself two years prior...

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kaosjroriginal@reddit

I had to do this to two separate systems over the last week. Took a while to piece together the answer as well...

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BigZeekYT@reddit

I have a VR capable rig, and windoes says im ineligible to upgrade. I dont fuck with bios so I guess Im stuck on win 10 forever

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chr0n0phage@reddit

Been helping people with mbr2gpt for literal years now. Given how long Windows 11 has been out I'm' surprised this is just coming up for some now.

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Mx_Reese@reddit

Well last month was supposed to be the end of security updates for Windows 10, so lots of people like myself didn't install Windows 11 until then. Everybody said Windows 11 sucked and "upgrading" to it required me to spend $900 to replace hardware in my desktop that there was absolutely nothing wrong with except for that it couldn't run Windows 11, so naturally I wasn't in a rush to do that. I was so pissed that the day after I installed Windows 11 Microsoft sent me an email saying "Oh, oopsie whoopsie, if you really want you can sign up to get security updates for Windows 10 for a whole another year."

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RogueThneed@reddit

My personal machine is an old Surface Pro that runs Win 10. It wants me to update to 11, so my hope/expectation is that it can support it just fine when I finally get around to it.

As to why now? M$ just discontinued support for 10 quite recently.

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Funkydory6969@reddit

You can convert Windows 10 MBR to UEFI/GPT without losing data.. instructions here .. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-move-bios-uefi-windows-10 . Did this last week for a client no issues. Windows 11 requires UEFI/ GPT for upgrade.

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RogueThneed@reddit

r/whoosh?

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Xjph@reddit

Yes, that's literally the story.

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WhitePearlBlackOcean@reddit

I thought that the pc healthcheck program would call this out. Unless they removed that?

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Ruevein@reddit

….. I feel like an idiot but that explains why o had so many issues upgrading to windows 11.

I was using the same boot drive I had since 2010. A 128gb ssd. I can bet I set it up as MBR. I ended up getting a 1tb m.2 for boot and more storage as the 128 was constantly running out of space due to bloat.

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wiquzor@reddit

... That sounds suspiciously like exactly what I did this weekend.. are you perhaps.. me?

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Taken_out_goose@reddit (OP)

Ich bin dein Doppelgänger

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wiquzor@reddit

Alter schwede! ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;)⁭ ⁭

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QuinnWolfGod@reddit

You sir are going to be my tech support when I eventually get around to maybe sorting out the issues preventing win 11 from installing like setting secure boot and some other thing I forgot I need to change

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THEYoungDuh@reddit

This is incredibly common.

Seeing this a ton lately with people needing to enable secure boot for BF6

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Turns out, that he most usually installed cracked versions of Windows for people, for which he needed MBR to install, and my friend had a legitimate key, he used MBR out of habit.

Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

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ikonfedera@reddit

Probably had a very old cracked ISO which it used to install Windows 10 in its early days on computers without UEFI, and didn't bother to upgrade it at all.