Hi,
In fact you can make the steps in a group optional only if you make each of these steps optional.
Regarding your other questions:
You will need to link your SAID to your SSO account and afterwards it will be automatically detected once you log into the Forums and SSO with your account. You can find instructions in the following document : Adding valid Support Contract to HP Passport.pdf
I understand your difficulties to upgrade. Unfortunately for successful installation of the product you will need full administrative rights as the installation updates the machine's registries, etc. You will also need antivirus software, data execution prevention and user account control also to be disabled.
In case you receive the necessary permissions you can find links to the available patches for LR 11 in the following document What patches are available for LoadRunner 11 and the order they should be installed?
Kind regards,