The only limit to what you can do with a Raspberry Pi is your imagination, but even if your ambitions are a little more basic, there’s still lots of fun to be had. In many use cases, you’ll be looking at using a Raspberry Pi headless, that is to say without it being attached to a display.

It’s also perfectly possible to set it up this way using your Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC. Here’s how. Before you do anything, you’ll need both a copy of the OS for the Raspberry Pi and something to flash an image of it to the microSD card. Raspberry Pi has its own imager but for the purposes of this guide we’re using a third-party app called balenaEtcher since it has uses beyond just the Raspberry Pi and is a useful tool to have around. Then you’ll need to go to the Raspberry Pi downloads page and grab a copy of the OS.

There are various downloads available from the Raspberry Pi website, but for the purposes of what we’re trying to do here grab a copy of the “Lite” download.

You ideally want the Lite version for headless setup, especially on a Raspberry Pi Zero, as it’s a much lighter image with a smaller download footprint and importantly, no desktop UI. As we won’t be using it there’s no need to waste resources on it. BalenaEtcher will now run through a short process that should only take a couple of minutes depending on your hardware , and when you’re done leave it attached to your PC for the next step.

The key to being able to set up a headless Raspberry Pi is being able to connect to it from your Windows PC. For that, you’ll need it to be on your local network, and while you could use Ethernet, on the Raspberry Pi Zero, in particular, this requires additional hardware and it’s really not necessary.

To connect the Raspberry Pi to your home network and allow remote access we need to ensure it has two things:.

It’s important to make sure the blank file has no file extension to function properly. You’ll know it has been successfully changed as the icon will now look like a blank piece of paper compared to one with lines on it. Set up your file like the image below. Enter the name of your Wi-Fi network inside the ssid quotation marks and your network password inside the psk quotation marks.

Then save the file. Also, ensure you change the country to the two-letter code for your location. There was a time that you’d have to install a third-party application such as PuTTY to use SSH on Windows, but that’s not the case anymore; you can simply do it through the terminal. Ubuntu, for example, has it out of the box, but Debian does not. For this, we’ll be using the standard Windows PowerShell.

Before getting started make sure the boot microSD is inserted in the Raspberry Pi and that you power it on. You also need to find out the IP address on your network for the Raspberry Pi. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest is to just look in your router’s settings for connected devices and locate it there. If you’re only using one Raspberry Pi on your network, the default. You should now be presented with a short welcome blurb from Linux having successfully connected to the Raspberry Pi.

The prompt will also have changed from PowerShell to pi raspberrypi. Assuming they match you’ll see a confirmation message that you successfully changed the password. The basic setup of the Raspberry Pi is now done, but there are a couple of basic commands to run first before you exit out of it.

These are basic Linux commands that you’ll use quite often, but essentially it’ll ensure your Raspberry Pi is all up to date.

Enter these two commands:. The first run-through of these commands may take some time, especially on a Pi Zero. Then, once you’re done with your Raspberry Pi you can quit back to regular old Powershell simply by typing ”’quit”’ into the terminal. While you can use PowerShell or any installed WSL Linux distros to SSH into your Raspberry Pi, if you’re going to eventually handle multiple machines there are more elegant ways to handle and manage your connections.

On Windows, there’s the old favorite, PuTTY as well as the popular and elegant cross-platform client, Termius opens in new tab. And that’s all you need to know. By now you’ll have a fully functioning Raspberry Pi that you can interact with and get creative with all without the need for a display, mouse, and keyboard.

These are the mandatory or core equipment selections. Optional or ancillary equipment will follow. Tiny computer. The Raspberry Pi Zero W is still a fantastic and incredibly affordable way to dip your toe into the ecosystem or Linux in general.

This process is the same whether you go for the Raspberry Pi Zero or the regular model, but the Pi Zero is a great way to dip your toe and start to learn about Raspberry Pi. If you’re new to things like SSH, terminal, or even just Linux in general, it’s such an affordable way to get started and learn some new skills, with the added bonus that the maker ecosystem is enormous.

The only limit is your imagination. Setting up a Raspberry Pi is quick and cheap, but besides the actual board, you’ll need a couple of other essentials to make this headless setup happen. The Raspberry Pi gets its power over micro-USB, so if you’ve thrown out all your old phone chargers, grab this one as a dedicated unit.

Richard Devine is an Editor at Windows Central. Currently you’ll find him covering all manner of PC hardware and gaming, and you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

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Raspberry pi zero 2 w windows 11

Windows 11 was officially released at the end of for traditional PCs, and you can already get it running on a Raspberry Pi.

I will explain everything in this article. In a few minutes with a good Internet connection , you can have Windows 11 up and running on your Raspberry Pi! If you are looking to quickly progress on Raspberry Pi, you can check out my e-book here. The first third of the book teaches you the basics, but the following chapters include projects you can try on your own. It will be slow, whatever hardware you use. Knowing this, it would be better to use the best you can in order to ensure the best results while doing this experiment.

The only thing you need is to have an up-to-date firmware that allow the boot from a USB device, and even take is as the default option. Basically, if you already booted from a USB drive or if your Raspberry Pi device is new and further , it should be fine.

You have nothing to do. If not, you need to update the firmware to the latest version, and set the USB boot by default in raspi-config. I explain everything in my course , there is an entire project where I explain how to boot from a USB disk, but in a nutshell, here are the commands you need: sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade sudo rpi-eeprom-update sudo raspi-config. Once done or if you know your device is already ready for this , you can move to the next step.

In any case, you can still come back to this if you see that your Raspberry Pi is not using the USB drive to boot. Are you a bit lost in the Linux command line? Check this article first , for the most important commands to remember, and a free downloadable cheat sheet so you can have the commands at your fingertips. And if you want to watch this tutorial in video, here is the corresponding video on my channel:. If you start from scratch, you can follow this tutorial to get Raspberry Pi OS on your SD card and do the initial configuration.

If you already have an SD card ready with Buster on it, go with it. Then, you need to install Pi-Apps. Pi-Apps is a tool to install many applications easily on your Raspberry Pi. You can find the installation details on their GitHub page here , but basically, you can install it in one command:.

Pi-Apps will do everything for you. The interface is straightforward, it will ask you:. Then, the long part of the process will start. The tool will download all the required files, it may take a while depending on the Raspberry Pi model, the Internet connection speed and the USB disk you use. Just make sure your Raspberry Pi stays powered the whole time and does not go in sleeping mode. Note : if you experience any issue with the disk formatting.

I recommend installing Gparted , deleting all the partitions on the USB drive and even creating a new partition table. This way, the tool will start from scratch, and it should improve the chances of success I got a few issues with this too. Start the Raspberry Pi and wait a few seconds. If you followed the prerequisites carefully, the device should now boot on the USB drive and display something like this:.

This will take a long time, especially if you are not following my guidelines to use the best Raspberry Pi model with an SSD drive. Once everything is ready, it will reboot maybe several times until showing the tradition Windows 11 first boot wizard.

You just need to follow it to get your system ready. The second method is to use another computer to prepare the USB drive with Windows 11 on it.

The first thing you need to do is install WoR image on your computer. In fact, there is nothing to install, you just need to extract all the files and run the WoR. Before doing anything else, you need to download the Windows files. The zip file you get from UUPdump is only a script, there is no Windows image in it yet. Mine is named: ISO and is around 4 GB. Follow the steps below to learn how to do that: 1. Make sure an SD card of 16GB or more is attached to the board.

Now, power on the board, and you will see the Raspberry Pi logo. After that, the Windows loading sign will appear. Just give it some time, and you will move to the disk selection page.

If nothing shows up, remove the SD card and let the board boot from the external drive. I have provided a solution in the next step as to when to insert the SD card. Now, the SD card will show up in the drop-down menu. Note that it will take considerable time to complete the process. Just leave it there, and the process will be completed. The board will reboot several times during the process , just like any other Windows PC. To fix this, follow the below steps.

Restart Windows on Raspberry as you do on any other PC. You will enter the setup screen. Finally, the RAM limitation will be removed on Windows on Raspberry, as shown in the screenshot below. Anyway, that is all from us. If you are getting started with Raspberry Pi, go ahead and learn how to set up Raspberry Pi on a Windows laptop without a monitor or ethernet cable.

And if you are facing any issues in this tutorial, let us know in the comment section below. Some software simply requires windows, and there are no alternatives…. Your Comment. Your Name. The GoPro line of cameras has always been known to be action-oriented, and such has been appreciated by outdoorsy folks. Unveiled a couple of months […]. There was a time when gaming laptops were few and far between. However, with the progression of technology, the market is now flooded with a fair share of portable gaming rigs that can handle popular AAA games.

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Raspberry pi zero 2 w windows 11

Please complete those steps before moving on. No Windows machines are required to do this! The original method was complex and convoluted, but thanks to WoR member Botspot we now have a largely automated install process that runs completely from the Raspberry Pi 4.

Many thanks to leepspvideo for bringing this simpler method to our attention. There are drawbacks, however. This method takes longer than the manual method shown below which involves using a PC to generate the ISO file. Depending on your Internet connection and whether anything fails which it can, causing you to start again , this method could take an hour or two. The manual via PC method below should take less than an hour but has more steps and requires a PC. Select the drive that will be used to install Windows 11 then click Next.

Click Refresh if none are shown. Click Next to install Windows 11 to the drive. We do not have to make any changes to this screen. The install process will take some time, possibly up to an hour. Take no action but continue to monitor the output for any errors. There is a chance that the install may fail, if so close the terminal and repeat the previous steps,.

Once the installation is complete you will see the Next Steps screen. This screen tells us what to expect when we boot into Windows 11 for the first time. Click on Close. The first boot will take quite some time. Leave the installation to complete and you will soon be presented with the typical Windows 11 setup screens. Follow these screens to complete the installation. Choose the edition of Windows 11 that you would like.

We chose Windows Home and Pro. Click Next. This will trigger a security warning. The command prompt will now fill with text.

This is the output of a command that will download the Windows 11 for Arm image, patch it and then prepare an ISO image. This process may take some time, depending on your Internet connection and the power of your computer. The drive should appear and be ready for use. Please note that the drive will be formatted, and any existing data on the drive will be lost. Open WoR and allow the application to make changes to your computer. Set your preferred language and then click Next.

Click Next to move on. Use the latest driver packages , available from the remote server. These files are cached locally for future installs. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. Manage Settings Continue with Recommended Cookies. Windows 11 was officially released at the end of for traditional PCs, and you can already get it running on a Raspberry Pi. I will explain everything in this article.

In a few minutes with a good Internet connection , you can have Windows 11 up and running on your Raspberry Pi! If you are looking to quickly progress on Raspberry Pi, you can check out my e-book here. The first third of the book teaches you the basics, but the following chapters include projects you can try on your own. It will be slow, whatever hardware you use.

Knowing this, it would be better to use the best you can in order to ensure the best results while doing this experiment. The only thing you need is to have an up-to-date firmware that allow the boot from a USB device, and even take is as the default option. Basically, if you already booted from a USB drive or if your Raspberry Pi device is new and further , it should be fine.

You have nothing to do. If not, you need to update the firmware to the latest version, and set the USB boot by default in raspi-config. I explain everything in my course , there is an entire project where I explain how to boot from a USB disk, but in a nutshell, here are the commands you need: sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade sudo rpi-eeprom-update sudo raspi-config.

Once done or if you know your device is already ready for this , you can move to the next step. In any case, you can still come back to this if you see that your Raspberry Pi is not using the USB drive to boot. Are you a bit lost in the Linux command line? Check this article first , for the most important commands to remember, and a free downloadable cheat sheet so you can have the commands at your fingertips.

And if you want to watch this tutorial in video, here is the corresponding video on my channel:. If you start from scratch, you can follow this tutorial to get Raspberry Pi OS on your SD card and do the initial configuration. If you already have an SD card ready with Buster on it, go with it. Then, you need to install Pi-Apps. Pi-Apps is a tool to install many applications easily on your Raspberry Pi.

You can find the installation details on their GitHub page here , but basically, you can install it in one command:. Pi-Apps will do everything for you. The interface is straightforward, it will ask you:. Then, the long part of the process will start. The tool will download all the required files, it may take a while depending on the Raspberry Pi model, the Internet connection speed and the USB disk you use. I prefer running a Linux distribution optimized for this device even if it means that some apps are not available than using Windows and have everything going slower than on Linux.

But I understand that some of you may need Windows to work on specific apps with only a Raspberry Pi available. In short, installing Windows 11 on a Raspberry Pi is a fun project to experiment. It may help some of you access apps that are not available on Linux, and you can install it even if the Raspberry Pi is the only computer you have.

If Windows is not required for you, you can find other options that look like Windows but work way better, for example take a look at Twister OS or some of these desktop environments.

Not sure where to start? Understand everything about the Raspberry Pi, stop searching for help all the time, and finally enjoy completing your projects. Watch the Raspberry Pi Bootcamp course now. If you are looking for the best tips to become an expert on Raspberry Pi, this book is for you. Learn useful Linux skills and practice multiple projects with step-by-step guides. Download the e-book. VIP Community If you just want to hang out with me and show your support, you can also join the Patreon community.

I share behind-the-scenes content there and give you early access to my content. More details here. Need help building something with Python? Create, understand and improve any Python script for your Raspberry Pi. Learn the essentials, step-by-step, without losing time understanding useless concepts. Get the e-book now. You can also find all my recommendations for tools and hardware on this page. I’m the lead author and owner of RaspberryTips.

My goal is to help you with your Raspberry Pi problems using detailed guides and tutorials. In real life, I’m a Linux system administrator with a web developer experience.

A Raspberry Pi requires a few accessories to get started. The keyboard is often overlooked as you can use any USB keyboard. But I can tell you from experience that it’s an important decision. In this Installing Home Assistant at home is an interesting project to start playing with home automation.