It didn’t take long for the Windows on Raspberry community to get Windows 11 running on the Raspberry Pi 5. Yes, the flagship Raspberry Pi with a quad-core 2.4 GHz CPU and up to 8GB of RAM can now run Windows 11, with some caveats. We watched some videos on LeePSPVideo and followed the instructions, but our success was short-lived.
The first big hurdle we faced was getting UEFI BIOS firmware capable of booting Windows 11. To do this, we follow the instructions in Windows on the Raspberry (Pi) GitHub repository to create a microSD card using UEFI BIOS. We successfully booted a Raspberry Pi 5 using this BIOS and took a look inside to see how it works.
Satisfying our curiosity, we downloaded the WoR Project’s Raspberry Imager, a tool that automates the installation of Windows 10 and 11 for Raspberry Pi and other single-board computers.
Before using the tool, we need to obtain a legitimate Windows 11 image, and WoR once again provides a tool to simplify the process. Please note that this download may be flagged as dangerous by your browser, so please make every effort to confirm its legitimacy before proceeding with the download.
Launching the WoR Raspberry Imager, we followed the process to create a Windows 11 installation on a spare NVMe drive – a drive known to work with the Raspberry Pi 5. The installation process was painless and although a little slow, we were quickly done and ready to use Windows 11 on our Raspberry Pi 5.
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We placed the drive into the waiting Pimoroni NVMe Base and made sure the microSD card was inserted. First, we boot it up and we see “The Raspberry”. Then the system tries to boot, but after a long wait (10-15 minutes), nothing. Is it the driver? Won’t. This drive works fine with the Raspberry Pi operating system. We still tried another drive, but unfortunately we encountered the same failure.
Starting with Raspberry Pi 4, we have been able to boot from a USB 3 drive, and Raspberry Pi 5 is no exception. We removed the NVMe base and drives. Put the drive into a USB to NVMe adapter and had the same problem as before. Undeterred, we created a fresh installation drive and tried the USB method again, and it worked! Soon we’ll be able to run Windows 11 on the Raspberry Pi 5!
The air gap expands!
The Windows 11 setup process after installation is very simple. Get the user’s location, locale, keyboard, and name. Then connect to the Internet, link to your Microsoft account, and download the update. We think we can connect to the internet. Of course, Ethernet works. Long story short: no. Ethernet and Wi-Fi both failed.
Watch LeePSPVideo’s YouTube video explaining that Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and audio don’t work with Windows 11 on the Raspberry Pi 5. This means a USB adapter is required. I tried more than a dozen Wi-Fi adapters and none of them worked. The old Linksys USB to 10/100 Ethernet doesn’t work either. We need another way to complete the setup!
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Following our guide on how to install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account, we successfully bypassed this part of the setup and finally reached the Windows 11 desktop. But without internet access, we’re left with a brick that looks pretty cute.
This isn’t the end of our adventures using Windows 11 on the Raspberry Pi 5. Once the WoR project updates the Raspberry Pi 5’s firmware/drivers, we’ll go back and see if we can make the Raspberry Pi 5 a low-power, Arm-based desktop computer.
We’ve installed Windows 10 on a Raspberry Pi 4 in the past and even managed to get Windows 11 running on a Raspberry Pi 4. So we know a working installation is possible, and we know the WoR community will work hard to make it possible.