So, my son brought me a laptop with win11 on it.(his mother's) Win 11 is NOT activated. Whoever installed it also put a password on the friggin bios, which seems to be unavailable. What would be my best way forward here..?? Thanks.
clean install Windows 10 with double click on setup.exe from a Windows 10 iso. actual Windows installation will be moved in c:\Windows.old
Most likely you can access the boot menu without a BIOS password. Just press enter when the "lenovo" logo shows up and it will list the hotkeys to boot. Then you can boot from any USB install media and clean install whatever OS you want
Old but how old? Anything above 4th gen i5/i7 with SSD and 4GB+ RAM should run Windows 11 fine. Especially those IoT Enterprise editions. But before anything, do the tough task to open up the laptop to reset the CMOS by disconnecting the batteries and if you fancy, take that opportunity (opening the laptop) to reapply the thermal paste, clean the internals (carefully) and do any upgrades, like more RAM & SSD. ThinkPads are really well-built machines, designed to last really long. Thanks.
Not downgrade, but clean install is available and works, just tried in VM EDIT: Tried versions x64 : clean install win8 from Win10+11 ok clean install win8.1 from Win10+11 ok (win8.1 if missing ei.cfg require run setup.exe from sources\ else error about validating product key) clean Vista from Win10 ok