Windows 10 upgrade for a M17R4, which bios?

Hi all, I have a M17R4 with Win7 64 with the latest bios installed (A12 http://www.dell.com/support/home/it...ware-m17x-r4&languageCode=IT,EN&categoryId=BI) and I'd like to upgrade to Win 10; Dell doesn't support the m17r4 for win 10 but I noticed there's a new bios available for win 8.1 64 (A13 that gives support for win 8.1 system http://www.dell.com/support/home/it...ware-m17x-r4&languageCode=IT,EN&categoryId=BI).
My questions are: do I have to upgrade the bios (A13 for win 8.1) if I want to install win 10? And do I have to upgrade the bios before or after installing win 10?
Tks to all and sorry for my english

 

Hi, It's always best to use the latest bios available from Dell before upgrading the OS. You don't have to, win 10 will work with most hardware of recent years but features in win 8.1 supported in the bios will be used if they are there.

Good luck.

 

Don't install Windows 10 if you have an NVIDIA card... With AMD you should be fine.. Windows 10+ NVIDIA GPUs are bricking LCD's... My R4 unfortunately suffered such a failure

 

Tks, so I think I'll stay with A12 bios now (Win7) in the case I'd like to roll back after the update to win10

 

Tks for your advice TomJGX, I was already aware of this very bad issue and I'm sorry for you! I have an AMD 7970 and I think (hope?) my system won't suffer this failure; at the same time I'm a little scared and maybe it would better to wait a little more to perform the update.
Tks

 

thus far i dont think we have heard anyone with amd having the problem, i myself am also on windows 10 (with an R4) and an nvidia card and not yet had any problems (unless the corruption gets set on shutdown/startup) but im also running an unlocked A10 bios with no problems that i know of

 

If you have 7970M your fine.. Go ahead .. NVIDIA card, not smart idea

 

So let me get this straight, if you have an Alienware M17x R4 with any NVidia card and install Win 10 your LCD will brick out? Seriously wtf?

 

It's not guaranteed, but neither is your safety... not until they figure out what the problem is and put a stop to it... it has happened to enough people that it warrants thinking twice, three times, or just not upgrading at all for now. It has been a month today and no progress yet on finding and fixing the problem.

*** Windows 10 + NVIDIA WHQL Drivers are Killing Alienware (and now maybe Clevo) LCD Panels ***

 

Thanks for the heads up. I just bought an R4 on ebay so doubtful I'll have a warranty.. Glad I read this! (jeez!).. Thanks for the link

 

I'm going to be transferring my 770M into the M17 so hopefully that will be okay (not one of the cards listed).. True that win10 isn't really worth the upgrade at the moment - i'll just hold off for now.

 

So, I upgraded to win 10 4 days ago: I kept the old bios (A12 for win 7), I installed the win 8.1 creative drivers and the mic/earphones' plug/unplug works smoothly, I solved the problem of the dpi scaling (I've always kept magnification set to 125%) with this tool: ( http://windows10_dpi_blurry_fix.xpexplorer.com/) and everything seems to work but...
1 Surfing the web isn't so fluid as before (web pages render in a strange way), tried with firefox, edge and explorer,
2 Pc shutdown is slower and sometimes the pc simply doesn't shut down ("I'm shutting down" remains in a loop) and I have to force it with the power button (very annoying),
3 When I start a game you can here a strange and short buzz (my son has the same issue on a different pc always with win 10).

 

Hi, I think i have the same problem (shutdown takes a lot of time or simply remains like in a loop ("I'm shutting down" but never shuts down) and I have to press the power button to turn off the pc. Is the same problem that you have experienced? Have you found a solution?
Tks for reply

 

actually i didnt notice any problems shutting down and starting up, mind you i had only shut down for the first time in almost 20 days on sunday (was visiting with my mom and took my laptop with me) and it seemed to start and shut down pretty quickly but then again im also using an mSATA which i got back in may.

 

I shut down the pc every evening before I go to bed and the shutdown issue happens 30/50% of the times, I also use a Crucial mx100 ssd (not msata) and starting up and shutting down is visibly slower as with win 7.
PS: I only performed the upgrade to win 10 and not a clean install (yet), I will do it later if everything works fine.

 

i did a half clean install, basically i installed win 10 over win 7, wiping all apps but keeping the user data folders (which also kept the username and other such settings.) seems to work fine for me

 

Tks icey, I decided to roll back to win 7 for now, the shut down issue was too annoying.
PS: the roll back to win 7 messed up one program (Dell stage) that I uninstalled under win 10 because not compatible, and now it's impossible to reinstall (win says: "a more recent version is installed in this computer" and even if I manually deleted all the registry keys related to the program there's nothing to do, cause the install version that I have must be older). It's not a big problem, I only hope that there are no other problems/issues in this rollback. Curious thing is that rolling back to win 7 I found all the emails receveid with win 10, so the backup that windows make to reinstall the previous Os is not an exactly image of the old Os, but like a sort of restore point of win 7. So if someone will choose to roll back for some reason must be aware of don't uninstall any program, even if uncompatible or you'll find the old system messed up.
Before rolling back I checked the start up time of win 10 (45 sec. with automatic log in), and then win 7 after the rollback (37 sec. and I have to digit the log in password!). Shutting down with win 7 returned to normality (very fast).
Hope it helps

 

yea thats one reason rolling back isnt always the best option, you can try clearing any registry entry but odds are it might still get corrupt, your best option might to find out if someone else has it installed on their system and is willing to locate all the files, zip them and send them to you to allow you to place them in the folder where you might be able to get it to uninstall and then you can reinstall. i dont know what "dell stage" is but i had a similar issue where i installed the OSD for the alienware 17 in hopes that it would make the OSD work under windows 10 but while it did install, it didnt change the actions of the program and then when i went to uninstall it would delete files but not remove itself fully which made installing an older version impossible. i had to roll back and then not install that version of the OSD.

but windows 7 works and in a few months you can try to upgrade again and hopefully some of the other issues will be fixed. in the future you might also consider doing a hard drive clone before installing a new OS. there are free tools that will work, some are good others are not that great, i used the free version of acronis that you can get from hard drive makers (if one of the drives you have is made by them) to clone my WD spin drive to a crucial msata then i used it again to make an image of the msata before i installed win10 just in case there were problems. glad your back to fast shut downs again

 

Hi icey, tks for your answer. Now don't laugh cause I reinstalled win 10 again; I'm not mad but lazy at the moment, now I explain better.
Yesterday after the rollback I found that a lot of things were messed up: many important folders such as Documents, Images etc. became in English language (I'm italian) but this wasn't a big problem to me, the real problem was that the same folders were present both in english (win 10 style, cause Documents folder is now called in this way even with italian language Os) than in italian (Documenti) and was impossible for me to access to one of them (I don't remember which) because I have no privilege (the old Documenti folder is property of my old administrator's name and the new one (Documents) is property of the new win 10 account (Microsoft log in); no chance to move, delete, create new account etc., I spent 3 hours to try to solve the problem until evening when I said to myself: ok, time to format but it was too late, and I preferred reinstall win 10 than spending many hours with win 7. I must be honest, I have a Windows image that I created 1 month ago (OS and recovery partition) with the windows 7 backup program but I think it's better to format from scratch, because the roll back messed up the recovery partition (I tried to begin the process just to see if it was still in good condition and the answer is no, Win 10 messed up also the recovery partition (still present but doesn't work). So I thought if I reinstall the os image that I made wouln't be a good idea. I prefer to wait until I have 1,2 days free just to format and reinstall everything and in the meantime I have a working pc. In the past I used different image programs (Acronis, ghost) but I've never used the Win 7 backup program so I don't know if it works properly (about 120 gb image to resore plus the recovery partition). I'll let you know.

 

if you are being told you dont have permission to access a folder that you want to you can "take ownership" of it, dont do this on certain system folders because it can cause problems. if you right click the folder, go to properties, security tab, go to advanced you should get another new window that is wider than the normal file/folder properties window, near the top you will see the name/location of the folder then under that it should say owner and then a blue "change" link, if you click that, type in your user name you should be able to take control over the folder (you will have to click apply/ok on each window till you are out of the properties to fully apply and see the changes). if it still gives you problems writing or reading stuff from the folder you may have to go back to properties, security and make sure you select (or add) your user name and check the box for full control and then hit apply. that might help you.

as far as that back up goes if there werent many changes since the last back up then it might be an option, but i agree, its usually better to reinstall windows, my backup would work since i keep most files that i would need between OS's on a second drive but my backup is also the original install of windows from alienware so a reinstall would do a lot of good. the windows 7 backup program isnt bad if you have a small C drive and you didnt install anything to another drive, i have used it before to restore my home theater pc settings when i had been trying different video cards to see which would work better. if you want to you can try to use a recovery CD but id say just use a pure windows disk and then install the alienware apps you need. i dont mind that i dont have a recovery partition anymore because i dont think its much use after a few years (and some of the old versions of preinstalled bloat only cause problems once they get updated).

not sure i can help with the language problem on the folders other than it might just be that the folders didnt get renamed back to what they should have been. its not always easy to get things right when you install over an older copy of windows which is why i generally would just wipe the main drive but sometimes thats not always an easy option so i understand all the problems coming from it.

 

@icey just a heads up on win 10 folder ownership. MS have done some sort of trick on the windows_old folder used to backup when upgrading. Even taking ownership fails to let you delete it. I found a utility on the MS site that does this if you want to delete this folder and contents.

 

As far the permission concerns I've already tried your advise but even if I have the ownerships it remains "Special authorizations" grey out and I can't delete the folder (tried many times), I will try what Mickey wrote and see if it works.
I have the Windows image I made 1 month ago before I upgraded to Win 10 (but it's about 120gb and was made together with the Recovery partition and my doubt is that a so big image and the recovery partition won't install properly, anyway this is a possibility I can try); 2nd possibility is to reinstall from the recovery cd I made last December (only OS and drivers), this is the best solution but it takes time cause I have to reinstall and adjust/set up everything; 3rd possibility is just to wait and see if the shutdown/restart issue will be solved somehow.
The Recovery partition is old only if you never format or changed hard disk because when you install the OS and Dell programs the first time you launch Alienrespawn (best thing is doing immediately of course) it will create a new updated Recovery partition, hope it helps.
I could delete the locked files with a simply old program that I already used in the past: Unlocker

 

Tks Mickey for your answer, I could delete the "locked files and folders" with Unlocker, a simple and little program.

 

hmm strange, i think i was able to delete some stuff or at least gain access to the windows.old folder and copy some stuff out before windows auto deleted it (which is standard by design after 1 month) or at least most of it as it still has my old user folder in it. but i will remember that, thanks for the heads up.

 

I've read there's a method to bypass the 30 days limit of win 10 and maybe rollback after some months. You have just to rename these folders and it seems it works. I write the link but the site is italian ( http://www.windowsblogitalia.com/20...a-windows-10-al-sistema-operativo-precedente/). The folders to be renamed are: $Windows.~BT, $Windows.~WS e Windows.old.

 

I found this Registry hack to be the most effective method (also works on multiple folders simultaneously which I liked.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

After installing the Take Ownership context menu item, you can just right click the folder - click Take Ownership and bang.. Wait for it to finish (will take a while on a Windows.old) and then it just can be deleted. I never had an easy experience using the Explorer window security options, that never seemed to work properly and left files behind but somehow this reg hack does it properly.

Also on a side note - never update or rollback windows - clean install for the win. It gets ugly and messy when you do upgrade or downgrade and you risk spending longer on forums trying to figure out all the problems than it would have taken with a fresh install. Plus fresh installs are much more robust, fast, clean, etc. I would urge everyone to avoid the messy upgrade options.

The only time I ever upgrade is to see if it's improved (say for example with Windows 10) - it wasn't. Or in the uncommon event that I have to install an old OS and then upgrade it just to have a legal copy of Win 10 - which was annoying, but for a free upgrade - well I can't complain. I extracted the new Key and hopefully that will function normally next time I clean install.

Incidentally, as to not be too off-topic - I'm running Bios A13 and it's running fine - no issues with my hardware and a decent overclock potential for this non-X cpu (3740QM now at 4GHz peak and 3.9GHz across all cores).

 

Tks Mr Pra for your advice, I just downloaded the registry hack and I will use it next time I have to delete something. I only upgraded to win 10 (not clean install) just to see if everything works properly (and to have a legal copy of win 10 of course). The only annoying thing is that win 10 needs a long time to shut down or restart (not always), and the opening of many folders is slower than with win 7 (for example I'm still using Acrobat Reader 11.0.10 with this little program: http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/ to see the thumbnails in explorer (it doesn't work with the latest version of Acrobat Reader) and every time I open a folder that contains some pdf files the system needs a very long time to "reveal" its content and sometimes it seems it doesn't react); with win 7 instead the folders' opening is immediate.
So I'm not sure if to keep win 10 or roll back to win 7. Anyway I agree with you that a clean install is always the best solution.
I keep on staying with bios a12 for now as I don't know (as I told you) if I want to roll back to win 7, and in this case I'm not sure if running bios a13 (Dell suggests a13 only for win 8.1) would be a good thing or not.
If I decide to stay with win 10 I will surely perform a clean install but I don't know which Dell drivers (win 7 or win 8.1) I have to use to avoid problems or to have the best compatibility/performance with the new Os.

 

It sounds to me like it's a problem with the updating. I can't be sure though because the windows thumbnail processor is more diverse in 10 and works with h265 and mkv for example. It could be that the new system is thoroughly scanning the PDFs and that would be much slower. There will definitely be some issues with it, but if you are unsure what you could try is ghosting your current setup, installing fresh to see if it's what you want and if issues are resolved. Then if not, just go back to 7 until 10 has matured and DX12 is a necessity.

When I got this machine it was already on A13 and I had no problems using Windows 7 or 10. I was curious why A12 was on the Dell site and not A13, also I'm wondering why A13 would be Win8.1 only but then wouldn't that also mean that it would be better for 10 since it's an evolution of 8.1?

I think I read somewhere that the overclocking was better on A13 and currently haven't had a reason to downgrade - I was thinking maybe the Unlocked Bios would contain something useful, the only thing I would like to have is some Bios control over the fans which switch on and off continually while idling, which means my temps are constantly fluctuating which is a bad thing in the long run.

I've had no problems RE drivers on the new OS and have used 8.1 drivers for all except the GPU (nvidia) which has Win10 drivers. I also didn't need to go looking for any network drivers (they worked automatically) and the only thing I had to install to get moving was the video, (intel and nvidia gpus) and the sound card (there is a work-around driver somewhere to get the headphone socket working and currently I didn't see a proper update from creative for the software layer (which is rubbish and pointless to me anyway). The ASIO driver works on 10 and games too so I'm happy.

Then there's the Command Centre and the hotkeys driver for GPU switching and that's it I think. No issues here with drivers.

 

Oh and I just noticed the comment about the PDF thumbnail explorer tweak, perhaps that's the cause. I would imagine that the program you're using for that needs an update to work with 10, but that's just a guess.

 

Mr Pra, you're right in everything, I agree with you as you're saying the same things I thought about. Now I'm downloading the Dell 8.1 drivers and if I have the time I will perform a win 10 fresh install today.
PS: I forgot to mention another issue I have: if I move some files (Cut and paste) to another position but in the same drive (example: folder A and subfolders B and C, I cut and paste some files from B to C) it takes a very long time as if they have to be pasted or copied to another drive and the process doesn't begin immediately but after 4,5 seconds, strange isn't?
Then I'm not sure but it seems to me that with Win 10 the fans are continuosly switching on and off, much more than with win 7, but I repeat I'm not sure.
Asio drivers works well on my system too, tried with Roland Vs-100 and Vox Jamvox Monitoring system.
I'll let you know
PS: sorry for my english

 

Edit: I uninstalled the pdf explorer tweak program and the Acrobat reader version 11 (this tweak doesn't work with Acrobat DC), rebooted and installed Acrobat DC (latest version) and the opening of the folders is much better now, maybe this issue is solved; I wait to format to see if everythings works.

 

No problem about your English my friend! I've learned several languages and never blame anyone for not being perfect in their secondary language. You're doing pretty well!

It certainly sounds like something's wrong and a clean install would be recommended just to flush any old registry or software tweaks that could interfere with normal operation. There's quite a substantial change involved under the hood from 7 to 10 so it's not surprising.

 

Great, I thought it would be the culprit.

 

After a few days since the last modification I made, I can really say the system works smoothlier, the slow opening of the folders disappeared, cut and paste command is quite normal (80%) and shut down/restart is now similar to win 7's behaviour (however it is always slower); at this point when I have the time I'll perform a win 10 clean install and let's see if also the little issues will be solved. I'll let you know anyway and tks again!
PS: I know that you have an nvidia card and not an amd, but yesterday I had to uninstall immediately the latest amd beta drivers (15.9) because they caused issue in my laptop (drivers stopped working) and roll back to 15.8 beta (it happened 3 times in about 2 hours and never happened before in my system, and I keep the gpu drivers always updated).

 

So, yesterday I performed a Win 10 clean install and it seems to me that everything's working well!
This is what I've done:
1) I burned a win 10 iso image not created with the media tool but downloaded directly from Microsoft ( http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/techbench);
2) Without internet collection I deleted all the existing partitions in my hard disk and then installed Win 10;
3) Then I installed all the win 8.1 drivers for the m17r4, and 2 of them (Free fall sensor and Intel HD graphics) were impossible to install.
4) I ran Windows update that downloaded an updated Amd and a working Intel hd driver; I uninstalled all the Amd drivers and reinstalled Catalyst 15.8 beta. Under device manager there was still an unknown device (the free fall sensor) and I solved the problem with this driver: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=V18VJ.

Then I installed all the programs that I will surely keep in the future (I mean the ones that don't need to be updated) before installing Alienrespawn ( the working win 10 Alienrespawn program can be downloaded here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/it/it/itdhs1/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=64M9D).
Alienrespawn is useful because it creates a working Recovery Partition in the system; always with Alienrespawn you can create working recovery media (on dvd, usb etc.).
Finally I installed all the other programs and games that I had before performing the clean install and, as I wrote before, everything seems to be ok.