XPS 8930, OS Recovery directly to Win11

Question

I want to swap the original 500 Gb SSD for a bigger one and do a clean install or Windows while I am at it. From what I understand I can use the Dell OS recovery tool for it, however from what I see it will only let me recover the original system which was Win10.

Is it possible to recover back to Win11 directly? Or will I need to install Win10 first and upgrade later? Is Microsoft still allowing such an upgrade for free?

Regards
Pawel

Tesla1856 · Accepted Answer

You can clean-install Microsoft's Windows-11, and it will use existing Dell-OEM Windows-key burned-into the BIOS/motherboard. Yes, it will Activate as genuine/legit.

https://www.dell.com/community/Windows-General-Wiki/Guide-to-migrate-to-a-New-Windows-11-computer/ta-p/8307872

Chino de Oro · Answer

Re: Is it possible to recover back to Win11 directly? Or will I need to install Win10 first and upgrade later? Is Microsoft still allowing such an upgrade for free?

Yes, it's possible to recover to Win 11 as some members on here posted a process to use OS recovery and replacing .wim file with Win 11 image downloaded from Microsoft. But the method is lousy at best. If you want good result, just follow the process posted by @Tesla1856 , it has an extensive write up and covering most common scenario for a complete OS transition.

pawdabr · Answer

Thank you all for your tips. I followed the process as presented by @Tesla1856 above and everything worked great!

XPS Desktops

XPS 8930, OS Recovery directly to Win11

Was this post helpful?