Upgrade Windows – Dell

Upgrade Windows – Dell

by | Mar 19, 2021 | Help Desk, Information Technology, PowerShell, Resources

I have a love hate relationship with dell. When it comes to windows 10 upgrades, I really don’t like them. How do you mass push windows 10 upgrade to clients without breaking them. As many of you know, recently the 20H2 update has broken many different dells. So, a quick way to fix this is by comparing the model to the online list. This script isn’t that big, and is designed to be deployed from the end user’s machine as a system service or admin account.

The Script

$DellSite = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000180684/dell-computers-tested-for-windows-10-october-2020-update-and-previous-versions-of-windows-10" -DisableKeepAlive
$Dellraw = $DellSite.Rawcontent.split('`r')
$CPInfo = Get-ComputerInfo
if ($Dellraw | select-string $CPInfo.csmodel) {
    if (!(Test-Path "$($env:SystemDrive)\Temp\Win10Upgrade")) {New-Item c:\temp\win10upgrade -Type directory}
    $DateTime = (Get-date).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd_hh-mm-ss")
    $webClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
    $url = 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=799445'
    $file = "$($env:SystemDrive)\Temp\win10upgrade\Win10Update_$DateTime.exe"
    $webClient.DownloadFile($url, $file)
    Start-Process -FilePath $file -ArgumentList '/auto Upgrade /quiet /noreboot'
} else {
    Write-Error "$($env:COMPUTERNAME) is a $($CPInfo.CsModel) and is not on the approved list found at: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000180684/dell-computers-tested-for-windows-10-october-2020-update-and-previous-versions-of-windows-10"
}

The Breakdown

I’m glad you decided to stay for the breakdown. This breakdown isn’t going to take long. The first element of this break down is the invoke-webrequest. We capture the website with the required information. (Link). Then we split the raw content by the return carriage. 

$DellSite = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000180684/dell-computers-tested-for-windows-10-october-2020-update-and-previous-versions-of-windows-10" -DisableKeepAlive
$Dellraw = $DellSite.Rawcontent.split('`r')

Now our web data is ready to pull from. Now we need to get information from the computer itself. Most systems these days have the Get-ComputerInfo command on them. It pulls the system info on a computer. Next, we ask a simple if-then statement. If the $DellRaw has the model number, then download and install the upgrade, if not let us know. Basically, we need a bouncer at this point. We use the $CPInfo.CSmodel as this is the model number. 

$CPInfo = Get-ComputerInfo
if ($Dellraw | select-string $CPInfo.csmodel) {
    #Install the upgrade
} else {
    #Warning the installer program that it's not on the list. 
}

The Download and Install

We first ask if the file folder is there. If it isn’t then we create it using the new-item command. Then we want to create a datetime stamp. Like in previous blogs, we use the .tostring() method to format the output. Then we declare the url and file path. Next, we invoke-webrequest command and download the file using the -outfile flag. Finally, we start the install with the correct flags. In this case, we want the install to be an upgrade that is silent and doesn’t force a restart because it could be in the middle of the day when this thing is finishing up. To start the installer we use the start-process

if (!(Test-Path "$($env:SystemDrive)\Temp\Win10Upgrade")) {New-Item c:\temp\win10upgrade -Type directory}
$DateTime = (Get-date).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd_hh-mm-ss")
$url = 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=799445'
$file = "$($env:SystemDrive)\Temp\win10upgrade\Win10Update_$DateTime.exe"
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -OutFile $file
Start-Process -FilePath $file -ArgumentList '/auto Upgrade /quiet /noreboot'

If your computer model is not on the list we will need to do a write-error. It’s best to say the computer name, model name, and the website it is pulling the data from. The write-error is collected by the standard deployment software. 

Write-Error "$($env:COMPUTERNAME) is a $($CPInfo.CsModel) and is not on the approved list found at: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000180684/dell-computers-tested-for-windows-10-october-2020-update-and-previous-versions-of-windows-10"

I hope this helps. Y’all have a great day now you hear.