Dell XPS 9305 laptop will not upgrade from 21H2 to 22H2 Windows 11

My 1 year old Dell XPS laptop is not being offered the upgrade to 22H2 in Windows Update. In addition, it will not install the iso as the option to keep files and applications is greyed out. The installer wants to do a complete reinstall as it reads a different version of Windows. I would like to avoid a reinstall and keep my applications.

I am suspicious the issue is the XPS machine came originally with Windows 11 home. 5 months ago I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro. I suspect the install is reading the Bios Home license. I cannot find the digital license for the Pro Upgrade on my Microsoft Account, but I belive I can have the Pro license using the elevated CMD "wmic path softwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey".

Is there a way to force the upgrade using Rufus or other? Any suggestions appreciated

Thanks

I believe you will find the answer in @cereberus post in this thread.

His post is about helping the user get his system back to Pro after a clean install. I do not want to do a clean install. I want to upgrade the OS and keep my applications and files. I'm Not happy that the Install files don't recognize the Pro upgrade. Maybe I may have to remove the Pro upgrade in order to do this. This is a bummer and means I will face this problem with every new version of Windows 11

I got an iso from uupdump.net. It was created to support both Home and Pro versions. I used it successfully on two desktops with Pro and one laptop with Home.

Maybe you could try the same. That would at least eliminate the home.pro consideration.

But that may not be the issue.

You are running Windows 11 on an incompatible cpu. You will not be offered 22h2 through Windows update.
explanation here Is Microsoft cracking down on Windows 11 updates for unsupported hardware?

The machine is not even a year old and came with Windows 11 installed. The CPU is 11th Generatioon Intel i7-1165G7 it is fully supported see (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...upported/windows-11-supported-intel-processor)

JerryF said:

My 1 year old Dell XPS laptop is not being offered the upgrade to 22H2 in Windows Update.

Click to expand...

Only supported devices will be offered 22H2 through Windows update. Your specs say you have a 7th gen Intel i7-7700, only 8th gen or newer are supported for Win11.

JerryF said:

In addition, it will not install the iso as the option to keep files and applications is greyed out.

Click to expand...

That is usually due to a language mismatch. eg: trying to upgrade an English (en-us) install with an English International (en-gb) ISO. You can only keep installed apps if your installed Windows and the ISO you use for the upgrade are both exactly the same language.

Called MicroSoft and was told the machine will eventually be offered the 22H2 upgrade in Windows Update.
There was no explantion of why running the .iso will only perform a clean install.

Bree,
I actually have 3 computers the one listed with i7 7th Generation has a new motherboard with 12th Gen. The XPS has an 11th Gen

JerryF said:

The XPS has an 11th Gen

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Then it will in due course be offered the 22H2 upgrade in Windows Update. The rollout is slowly ramping up, not all compatible machine will see it offered immediately. In some cases there may be specific hardware/software reasons for it to not be offered yet. MS place a Safeguard Hold on offering it to such machines until the issue has been resolved. With an 11th gen this may apply in your case:

Intel and Microsoft have found incompatibility issues with certain versions of drivers for Intel Smart Sound Technology (Intel SST) on Intel 11th Gen Core processors and Windows 11. Windows 11 devices with the affected Intel SST driver might receive an error with a blue screen. The affected driver will be named Intel® Smart Sound Technology (Intel® SST) Audio Controller under System Devices in Device Manager and have the file name IntcAudioBus.sys and a file version of 10.29.0.5152 or 10.30.0.5152. Only devices with both an Intel 11th Gen Core processors and an Intel SST driver version of 10.29.0.5152 or 10.30.0.5152 are affected by this issue.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I was going by what you had listed in your profile. How did you attempt to upgrade using the iso. As @Bree said, wait and it will eventually be offered through WU. To manually upgrade now, from within windows, you mount the iso file and select setup.exe. You do not boot from the iso.

If you choose to upgrade manually, the iso you download should be a multi-edition iso. I do not know how you acquired your iso but you can download a multi edition from here. Download Windows 11
Scroll down to section marked "download windows 11 disk image' and select multi edition in drop arrow box. You can mount this file directly from where ever you save it and/or make a bootable usb flash drive using rufus to have on hand if you ever have to do a clean install.

The system has 3 copies of the IntcAudioBus.sys file but they are either version 10.30.00.4842 or 10.24.00.7799. I checked for Feature Update Blocks and there are none. I tried the multi-edition iso and the uupdump.net version for Pro and Home both of which when run from within windows have the keep application and files greyed out ( a clean install or keep files but not applications are the only options)

JerryF said:

I tried the multi-edition iso and the uupdump.net version for Pro and Home both of which when run from within windows have the keep application and files greyed out ( a clean install or keep files but not applications are the only options)

Click to expand...

That would only happen if you have got an ISO in a different language from the one for the installed Windows. The most common mix-up is trying to upgrade an en-us (English) install with an en-gb (English International) ISO (or vice versa).

The easiest way to ensure you make an ISO of the correct language for your installed Windows is to download the Media Creation Tool, run it on the PC you want to upgrade, and tell it to make an ISO. By default it will make one using the correct options for this PC.

Bree,
The same thing happens if Media Creation is used to create the iso on the laptop. No option but clean install.

What error message are you receiving?

JerryF said:

Bree,
The same thing happens if Media Creation is used to create the iso on the laptop. No option but clean install.

Click to expand...

Just as a sanity check, can you confirm that you are mounting the ISO within Windows, then running the Setup.exe you'll find there - as glasscuter said in post #11.

glasskuter said:

To manually upgrade now, from within windows, you mount the iso file and select setup.exe. You do not boot from the iso.

Click to expand...

Yes I am using media creation tool to create the iso on the laptop. MC is using the native English USA to create it. I am then loading the iso as a virtual dvd drive and running setup from there. The option to install and save applications is greyed out and cannot be selected.

JerryF said:

I am then loading the iso as a virtual dvd drive and running setup from there. The option to install and save applications is greyed out and cannot be selected.

Click to expand...

That sounds like you are doing it correctly. On that 'Choose what to keep' screen there should be an explanation of why you cannot keep apps at the bottom of the page, like the one in the example screenshot that @aubergine provided in post #15 above.

Try an Try again I could not get 22H2 to install on my Dell XPS 9305. Using the ISO would keep telling me it was a different version of Windows 11 and keep your personal files and applications was always greyed out. I waiting patiently over a month for the 22H2 update to show up in Windows Update, but that was not going to happen soon. (it was getting other security updates so I know Windows update was working).

With a little thought I realized the solution was under my nose. It was my retail version of Macrium Relfect 8.
Here is what I did:
1-made a backup of my XPS machine using Macrium Reflect to a USB device (which I do regularly and so should everyone)
2-On my desktop computer I created a Virtual machine using my Reflect backup and Macrium's ViBoot.
3-I then started the virtual machine with HyperV. When Windows 11 loaded I ran the Windows 22H2 iso on the virtual machine. This time it asked for a Windows key. It would not take my purchased and installed Pro upgrade key, it took the key from an older copy of Windows 10 Pro
4-The ISO Installed the Windows 22H2 Pro upgrade on the HyperV virtual machine (no errors encountered)
5-I shutdown the virtual machine and rebooted to be sure HyperV had no connection to the virtual machine otherwise it will not backup.
6-Again using Macrium ViBoot I made a backup of the virtual machine. That backup has the same extension as any Macrium backup .mrimg.
I copied the backup file to the USB device.
7-Using my XPS laptop I started Macrium Reflect and restored the backup of my virtual machine from the USB device to the computer. All the partitions were in correct order.
8-I Booted the machine, it installed some drivers. I now have 22H2 running with all my files and all my applications.

Macrium to the rescue. Amazing!!

Sorry if this has been suggested before, I didn't go through all the posts. This usually happens if you try upgrading with the wrong language ISO. For example you have Windows 11 v21H2 English (US) and you accidentally downloaded the ISO for Windows 11 22H2 English International (UK). The language doesn't match, so you cannot do a proper upgrade keeping both your apps and data. If the original installation language was English US, for example, and you added a language pack, say Greek, to change the display language, you cannot upgrade with an ISO of the latter language (Greek), you have to download the ISO of the original language (English US) and then add the language pack to the new version. There is a Powershell command to find out the original language, but I don't have the code. You can also use a utility such as Aida64.