How to reinstall Windows 11 Professional on a Snapdragon X Elite device?

[LilSnoop40]

Hello, I just got a surface pro 11th edition snapdragon X elite. It came with windows 11 home, I wanted to removed windows home and put pro on it. Also I want to remove it so I don’t have to sign in with a MS account to use the device. I purchased a usb c drive made it bootable using the arm iso from Microsoft. I understand it doesn’t include any of the drivers. So when the usb c boots the surface it gets to where it says select language and version. Which I can’t do since touch screen doesn’t work. I can’t do anything else, I googled the drivers for this model 2076 and it takes me to an msi file. which I don’t know how to or if I can add that to the image to get the drivers loaded so I can install it. Please help.

[adrynalyne]

Why don’t you just upgrade the product key and be done with it? 😊

[Som]

On 08/01/2025 at 06:10, LilSnoop40 said:

Hello, I just got a surface pro 11th edition snapdragon X elite. It came with windows 11 home, I wanted to removed windows home and put pro on it. Also I want to remove it so I don’t have to sign in with a MS account to use the device. I purchased a usb c drive made it bootable using the arm iso from Microsoft. I understand it doesn’t include any of the drivers. So when the usb c boots the surface it gets to where it says select language and version. Which I can’t do since touch screen doesn’t work. I can’t do anything else, I googled the drivers for this model 2076 and it takes me to an msi file. which I don’t know how to or if I can add that to the image to get the drivers loaded so I can install it. Please help.

I would also like that know how to do that as I believe it will be a problem for me in the future. I believe you might need an image of the operating system rather than a traditional install

As for not wanting to sign into MS do the following

Right click on Start, Select Run, Type control userpasswords2. Select Add. Sign in without a microsoft account. follow the steps. Then when you're finished select your new account, select properties and then group membership and change to administrator.

Log out and then log into the new account

Edited January 8, 2025 by Som

[C:Amie]

The simplest solution here would be to connect a USB-C hub/dock and use a proper mouse and keyboard to do it.

 

Failing that, you will need to extract the driver INF's from the MSI file . You can try using 7-zip to do it; you might be lucky and find it is just a wrapper MSI, else try

msiexec /a c:\folder\folder\install.msi /qb TARGETDIR=c:\folder\folder

One you have them, inject the one that you need into the boot.wim and install.wim files on the UFD. You do this using DISM.exe

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/add-and-remove-drivers-to-an-offline-windows-image?view=windows-11

[LilSnoop40]

Ok so I plugged a keyboard into a usb c hub. Restored the imagine the mouse keyboard work but can’t do anything more as it’s looking for the network driver off the start. I am lost at this point, I have done hundreds of clean windows installs before but nothing like this so kind of lost.  I downloaded the 7zip program extracted the msi from Microsoft site but it’s a bunch of files that look nothing like a zip file or driver files where I could point to and install. Please help

[LilSnoop40]

Never mind I figured this out. At this point I did a hold shift and click F10 when the cmd box came up I typed in cd oobe then clicked enter,  now you should be in that dir, now type bypassnro.cmd click enter the system will reboot and you will no longer have to install the network driver and can do and offline setup. Not needing and email/pass. Once it boots up put the surface msi file on the desktop using the usb c hub and run it all drivers are installed back to normal.

[C:Amie]

🙂 Glad you got it sorted. Having to DISM inject the WIM is always a pain unless you have masses of machines to configure, so best avoided if possible.

[LilSnoop40]

I appreciate your suggestion even though I didn’t use it.  Thanks again