XPS 8920, upgrade from i7-7700 CPU?

Actually, it’s the ‘ol Windows 11 thing.

Neither of these CPU's are listed as compatible by MS, which has been a mystery to me. The i7-7700 with 16GB of RAM runs the heck out of anything I throw at it under Windows 10, including intensive applications like DAW and video editing software.

To be honest, I must have a hole in my head thinking about installing a new version of Windows until at least a few years following its release in the first place. Before anyone flames me, personally it’s not worth a complete PC upgrade, especially since Windows 10 is supported through October 2025. Guess I’ll need to save up my pennies until then.

Regardless, thanks much for the reply Ron... I do appreciate your time!

You're welcome.

You're not the only one in this situation with XPS 8920. Read here, here, etc...

There are some registry hacks that might let you install Win 11, if you're willing to experiment, at your own risk, of course.

That said, have you ever used Win 11?  I used a laptop for a couple of weeks last month with Win 11 Pro installed.  All I can say is: "What the heck was Microsoft thinking..?"  I hated it and will keep Win 10 on my personal PC until they forcefully wipe it off my SSD...!

Nope, never laid hands on it, but I’ve certainly read about all sorts of usability issues. Personally, it’s not even so much that which concerns me. Every new Windows release takes some getting used to.

What holds me back is:

- I’d bet the farm it’s still buggier than a picnic right now, and will be for quite some time.
- Every application I need to use runs fine under W10 on my present PC.

So, like you and I’m sure many others, I’ll be sticking with 10 until doomsday. There’s no need to look for a building to jump off of quite yet. ;^)

I also have a XPS 8920 SE tower with Intel Core i7-7700 CPU that I got in 2017.  Each year, I've upgrade the hardware with Black Friday discounts -- first I put in a 1TB SSD, then later -- added 32GB, eventually 64GB of RAM -- the SSD makes Windows start time reduced, and the extra ram really increased the overall speed of - basically any app I run.  Wish I could upgrade the processor, though so it's good to learn that -- looks like I'll be getting full money's worth until eventually upgrading to a newer tower down the line.

Last year, I upgrade to Windows 11, even though 'wasn't supposed to' due to it not being 'officially supported'.  I just followed the online walkthrough someone had posted of the workaround to get it installed on top of the included Windows 10 on the XPS desktop.  The first week after upgrading to Windows 11, like everyone else, my initial reaction was to revert back to Windows 10, due to all the bugginess.  The only thing I would recommend in hindsight is that -- it's more than likely better to go with a fresh install of Windows 11.  I installed it on top of Windows 10, which resulted in some of the initial bugginess, and since then, I've read others who say a fresh install from scratch is the way to go, which resolves some of those things.  The problem at the time was Microsoft was pushing a 'free and easy upgrade' without having to install from scratch, but that didn't turn out to be quite accurate.   But I figured like you said, Windows generally has a little bit of a learning curve with each new major version release, so it was a combination of -- I managed to solve all the immediate issues, along with -- in early 2023, Microsoft had a few upgrades which provided tweaks that solved pretty much any remaining problems, along with device driver updates from other suppliers (like nVidia on the gpu).  So if you're willing to make it somewhat of a project, you can make Windows 11 work on this Dell model.  With the mainly cosmetic improvements to Windows 11, compared with Windows 10, such as multiple desktops, and my favorite, File Explorer has tabs, I wouldn't go back to Windows 10 now.  Having tabbed windows in Explorer helps my workflow.  Overall, still a great desktop and investment.