Installing Microsoft Windows 11 operating system has been a little different from the older versions of Windows. For example, Windows 11 cannot be installed on computers that lack TPM 2.0 chip, secure boot and UEFI firmware. If you try to install it on older computers that do not meet these requirements, then the installation stops in the middle and cannot continue.
However, there are some workarounds using which we can install Windows 11 on almost any computer. For example, we can create a bootable USB drive for Windows 11 installation using Rufus with the options to bypass the TPM and secure boot check.
If you install Windows 11 on a computer that lacks these requirements using this workaround, Windows 11 might show you a message on the desktop. This message reads – “Hide messages when Windows system requirements are not met”. You cannot remove this message in any ordinary manner as it appears in form of a watermark on the desktop background all the time.
There is a Windows policy that can hide this message. Here is how you can do it:
- Press Win+R to open the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog, type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
- In the Group Policy Editor that opens, select Local Computer Policy, then Computer Configuration, then Administrative Templates and finally System.
- Locate a policy named Hide messages when Windows system requirements are not met and double-click on it.
- In the policy settings, select Enabled and click on the OK button.
- Close all the windows opened through this process and restart Windows.
If you do not want to use the Group Policy Editor then you can also make changed to the Windows Registry directly. For this, you can follow these steps:
- Press Win+R to open the Run dialog, type regedit and press Enter.
- In the Registry Editor, locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
- Create a DWORD 32-bit value named HideUnsupportedHardwareNotifications and change its value to 1.
- Close Registry Editor window and restart Windows.
It should be noted that this desktop watermark appears only on Windows 11 22H2 and later versions. Above mentioned settings have no effect on earlier versions of Windows.