Just came into possession of some Dell 7050 and 7070 SFF PC's (circa 8 years old).

Just blogging my attempts to upgrade these old PC's to Windows 11.

I figure I can use them as low performance Kiosks (Just a browser), or as a router on a stick pfSense emergency replacement device.

Note: Upgrades will likely fail if you have hardware faults.

Dell 7050 SFF Notes - Cannot Upgrade to Windows 11

Dell 7050's I have use a 7th Generation i7 Processor and Windows 11 minimum is Gen 8... So no joy.

The Processor isn't Supported so no Windows 11 Upgrade unless you bypass the compatibility checks (see Rufus ISO copy to USB if you want to do this). However this is unsupported by Microsoft / Dell.

Getting back to a clean Windows 10 Install on Dell 7050

Don't connect to Internet via WiFi or Ethernet

Login as Adminstrator of the Windows 10 Pro install

Choose Reset and remove everything and clean drive

After a reboot, at the BIOS boot stage it prompts to clear the TPM (F12) I said yes.

Now at Installing Windows 4% Don't turn off your PC. This will take a while. Your PC will restart several times.

Go through the OOBE with internet disconnected so you only have to enter a user / pass not MS account. Ignore prompts to connect to WiFi

Plugin a USB with the latest BIOS and Win 11 ISO

Run the 1.27 BIOS update. Failed because after the reset the computer is BitLocker encrypting itself... Currently Get-BitLockerVolume is saying EncryptionInProgress and is at 82%. This is going to take a while. Taking ages so:

Ran the Enable-Bitlocker ... command to add Tpm and RecoveryPassword. Wait for BitLocker encryption to complete

# just so I could take note of the Recovery password because it wan't showing yet
Enable-BitLocker -MountPoint C: -TpmProtector
Add-BitLockerKeyProtector -MountPoint C: -RecoveryPasswordProtector

# encryption was not progressing so...
# pause and restart to get encryption moving again
manage-bde -status C:

manage-bde -pause C:

manage-bde -resume C:

And now it's incrementing and the HDD is busy again

after it got to 100% reboot

shutdown /f /r /t 0

Install the latest BIOS

Attempt Windows 11 Upgrade from Mounted ISO and it can't be done

Dell 7070 SFF Notes

Trying to get Dell 7070 upgraded

Go to dell.com/support entered the service tag and doing the automated scan which said everything was up to date.

Clear the TPM and reboot (tpm.msc as administrator, clear TPM)

Next step check and find that BIOS was old 2019 so went to dell.com/support and manually download lastest BIOS firmware

Updated from 1.03 to 1.34.0. I am hoping this is why the updates keep failing

Now using the latest download of Win11_24H2_English_x64.iso mount it and try install again.

Confirmed: Updating BIOS allows successful upgrade to Windows 11, however if the Windows 10 install is not solid it won't upgrade

Trying ISO Upgrade with no internet - Didn't work (Ended up being HDD Hardware Fault)

Disable internet access (Disconnect and disable WiFi). Have run setup.exe off the mounted ISO and it's just sitting there for minutes with a Windows splash dialog and not moving on to the next step.

Current working process is

1. Bring windows 10 up to current patch level
2. Updates & Security => Recovery => Reset this PC => Get Started
3. Select to keep nothing and to clean data (want it as clean as possible), and install from download NOT locally
4. Wait multiple hours

Different Solution - Boot and Press F12 Select Recovery with BIOS Support Assist. Get the re-install from Dell

Getting the recovery image from Dell works, but if you hardware is bad it won't be successful

One 7070 just wouldn't install no matter what I tried while logged into the Desktop so I am doing a reboot press F12 to get into the Dell SupportAssist BIOS reset utility. This takes everything from Dell servers and I have asked to reset everything back to a clean install.

Approx 2 hours.

Will it work? It reported success now booting into OS. Says "Getting ready" and Spinner. It's been saying this for a while (10+ mins). Do I have bad hardware? One consolation is the HDD light is still flashing so I think it's doing something. So maybe a part of the Dell Recovery process. I will wait. So after a 3:43PM to 3:56PM wait the Getting ready has gone and the PC has rebooted now I just have a spinner and... a Windows Setup Dialog and then it drops back to a SupportAssist OS Recovery screen.

OK so this 7070 failed because after doing the whole recovery thing on it suddenly I had a BIOS beep and the screen said SDD was missing. Changed the SSD to one I recovered from a water damaged Windows 11 laptop, booted it and now I have a Windows 11 Desktop. So bad hardware... was the culprit.

Dell 7070 CPU - Tends to be Pegged

As these are old PC's with Gen 9 i7's with 8GB RAM the CPU resource usage is high. CPU is generally above 50%, usually above 80% and often at 100%. But interacting (opening windows, browsing web) isn't too bad. Rebuilding with no cruft seems to help things.

Option A - Keep the Cruft

Doing the following with a crufty old Windows 10 PC sometimes fails, sometimes works

1. Without Resetting the PC, run Windows update on Windows 10 to bring everything to latest patch levels
2. Download the Windows 11 iso and mount it
3. Run Setup.exe
4. Set it to keep my files. I think it might have failed also because I didn't actually double check there were no more Windows updates available. Next try I've run Windows Update and rebooted multiple times to make sure it is at the latest patch version.

2nd run looking a lot more promising current at Installing XX% and it's progressing.

Option B - Remove Cruft for a Cleaner End Result

If the install on a crufty old Windows 10 instance fails try the following clean slate install

On Windows 10 go Settings => Recovery => Reset this PC => Click Get Started

Change the selections to keep nothing and clean data (I think this removes files and wipes free space)

Reboot and run through the default OOBE (don't choose home with Microsoft Account, Choose domain install instead and don't Domain join it)

Accept the offer during OOBE (Out of Box Experience Wizard) to install a free upgrade to Windows 11

Once booted back into windows run Windows Update and you will see updates + the upgrade to Windows version 22H2 ready for you

Click Download and wait until prompted to reboot (this is how far I've gotten ATM)

Reboot...