No option to install Home

Hi there,

Apologies if this has been asked a thousand times in the last minute but I couldn't find anything relevant in the search.

I've just recently finished building my first PC and have come to installing Windows (11 Home). I used the option "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" and put it on a formatted USB stick

So the pc boots up and setup begins and once I get past the language select screen, the "choose which operating system...." box appears, which gives me the choice of.........Windows 11 Pro.

And that's it.

After that it's the agreement page and then it wants to proceed to install - which I've stopped.

I spent several hours last night trying various things; I have reset my motherboard in case I'd been sold a pre-owned board and the previous owner's Windows key was still in the board. That didn't work.
I tried creating a ei.cfg file and placing it in the Sources folder on the install USB stick - that didn't work either.

So, now I'm completely stuck - I genuinely don't know what else to try.

If anyone has ANY suggestions (other than "use Pro"), I'd be etremely grateful.

Thanks

Download the Windows 11 ISO file which have all Windows 11 editions and use Rufus to create bootable USB.


Create bootable USB drives with Rufus.

https://rufus.ie/en/

Pictobug said:

I have reset my motherboard in case I'd been sold a pre-owned board and the previous owner's Windows key was still in the board

Click to expand...

As far as I know that process can't be changed, is part of the board. If it were mine I'd be plumb happy to keep Pro on it. A number of the Pro features don't have to be used, just are "there", probably will never be needed by most consumers.

Berton said:

As far as I know that process can't be changed, is part of the board. If it were mine I'd be plumb happy to keep Pro on it. A number of the Pro features don't have to be used, just are "there", probably will never be needed by most consumers.

Click to expand...

@Berton when Media creation tool used it selects the Windows edition to install, there is a way to stop this from Media creation tool how i don't remember its best OP download the ISO image which will have all Windows 11 editions.

I would go ahead and install the Pro version. If it activates you're good to go.

Pictobug said:

So the pc boots up and setup begins and once I get past the language select screen, the "choose which operating system...." box appears, which gives me the choice of.........Windows 11 Pro.

And that's it.

Click to expand...

I don't know exactly how you made your USB, but if you made it using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool then it should contain multiple editions. You can check the contents of yours using DISM.


This is what you should see for a normal install USB for Windows 11 23H2 made by the MCT, seven different editions.

Bree said:

if you made it using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool then it should contain multiple editions

Click to expand...

@Bree, I have found the tool creates a multi-edition usb ONLY if you select the option within the tool that says "Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC". If the OP did not choose this option, he ended up with a single edition iso/ usb drive that matched what was installed on the machine he used to create the media. He says he added an ei.cfg file.

@Pictobug we do not know if you created and added this file correctly. Had you chosen the option I mentioned, you would not have needed to add anything as the resulting installation media would have given you a choice which version to install.

You could also have downloaded a multi-edition iso using the method mentioned here. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/how-to-download-windows-11-iso/m-p/3062471

Just wanted to say thank you to all who replied. I ended up making an ISO USB, which worked fine, although I've now run into another problem, which I'll probably post soon. Sorry. :-(