Is it possible to install a BIOS update from an .exe file?

[CatKiller]

How would I do that? BIOS is not something I generally mess about with (I'm not that technical enough).

You'd put the file somewhere that the UEFI can read from - the ESP or a FAT-formatted flash drive are good candidates. Then there'll be a button that you can press to get into the UEFI setup, which varies by manufacturer and is generally displayed early in the boot process, or you can select it from the Grub menu or run a command to reboot into the UEFI setup. From there there'll be an option to update the firmware. Where the option is also depends on the manufacturer. You point it at the file you downloaded and let it do its thing. It will restart the machine when it's finished. A firmware update will generally reset everything to defaults, so you might need to go back into the setup if you'd previously made changes.

Edit to add: the idea of changing the UEFI firmware from within Windows gives me chills; if users can do it then malware can do it, too. Ugh. Also, the UEFI settings page isn't something to be scared of: you can't generally break anything in there, although you can make things not work. There is usually a reset to defaults option somewhere, which, again, varies by manufacturer, if you've played and made things not work.

[torspedia]

Depends on the BIOS. What is the laptop model?

It's an Acer ConceptD #N17C2.

[pencuse]

BTW, the systemd service fwupd is useless for very old laptops to get any of its firmware like SSD etc. At least for my E7440 laptop, which is 8 years old now. The laptop has Ubuntu since 2017 and fwupd never did anything automatically. Better to download these directly at BIOS/UEFI.

[Yellow Pasque]

I looked at an example Acer BIOS file and it really looks like it requires Windows. I couldn't even get it to run in my FreeDOS VM ("will not run in DOS mode")

Maybe the best way to do this is:
1) create bootable Win10 USB stick
2) copy the BIOS .exe to it
3) Boot the USB
4) Press Shift+F10 to get to command prompt at the intro screen
5) Try to run the .exe from there

N17C2

FYI: I'm pretty sure that's the screen model.

[torspedia]

I looked at an example Acer BIOS file and it really looks like it requires Windows. I couldn't even get it to run in my FreeDOS VM ("will not run in DOS mode")

Maybe the best way to do this is:
1) create bootable Win10 USB stick
2) copy the BIOS .exe to it
3) Boot the USB
4) Press Shift+F10 to get to command prompt at the intro screen
5) Try to run the .exe from there


FYI: I'm pretty sure that's the screen model.

I've tried twice now to create a bootable Win 10 USB, each time it came back saying that the install.wim file was too large. I even tried copying that file on its own, to no avail. Trying to install it onto a 16GB USB.

[Yellow Pasque]

Is the file larger than 4GB? If so, it won't work on a FAT32 filesystem. (There are ways around that. Google it.)
Where did you obtain the .iso?

[oldfred]

The latest versions of Windows have the .wim file over 4GB and FAT32 has a 4GB limit.
I used a Windows system and its installer, and it split the .wim file to make it smaller.

Most of instructions you find on Internet are for older versions of Windows where .wim was smaller and fit fine on a FAT32 partition. You need the newer instructions.
Do not know why Microsoft just does not split file in the download ISO to avoid issues. But I guess they only want Windows users to download and use ISO.

Dell has this info on how to do it. But I think it is using Windows commands.
https://www.dell.com/support/article...system?lang=en

Using Linux:
https://techbit.ca/2019/02/creating-...e-using-linux/

[torspedia]

Is the file larger than 4GB? If so, it won't work on a FAT32 filesystem. (There are ways around that. Google it.)
Where did you obtain the .iso?

Yes, it was. I was following the guide from It's FOSS. (Now to think of what to search for)

[CatKiller]

I've tried twice now to create a bootable Win 10 USB

Have you tried just going into the UEFI setup yet? The videos on the Acer website of their process show the Windows part of it as simply automatically rebooting into UEFI setup with the particular file already selected for update; it's still the UEFI that's doing all the work.

[torspedia]

You'd put the file somewhere that the UEFI can read from - the ESP or a FAT-formatted flash drive are good candidates. Then there'll be a button that you can press to get into the UEFI setup, which varies by manufacturer and is generally displayed early in the boot process, or you can select it from the Grub menu or run a command to reboot into the UEFI setup. From there there'll be an option to update the firmware. Where the option is also depends on the manufacturer. You point it at the file you downloaded and let it do its thing. It will restart the machine when it's finished. A firmware update will generally reset everything to defaults, so you might need to go back into the setup if you'd previously made changes.

I've copied the .exe file over to the USB that's been formatted into FAT32. Unfortunately, however, I could not see any option to "update the firmware" in any of the BIOS settings. The machine has BIOS v1.23 and most of what I've come across, thus far, hasn't shown me where to find the update firmware option!