Windows required to update BIOS?

This package contains the Dell system BIOS update and is supported on Dell Latitude E7250 that runs Windows and DOS operating systems.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/ca/en/cabsdt1/product-support/product/latitude-e7250-ultrabook/drivers

Is Windows required to update the BIOS? Are you kidding me? I see only an .exe available…

I already tried fwupmgr get-devices and the ssd is the only devices shown.

Freedos works with Dell updates but it’s sometimes a bit hairy to get there

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How does FreeDOS work? Can it be run “live” without installing?

Yes, you can write it to a flash drive and boot it, make sure to put everything you need on the flashdrive too.

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Any specific warnings before I try it?

No real danger lurks its just tedious. Sometimes you have to extract from the exe or sometimes Dell provides a dos version that works great

So it turns out pressing F12 during boot has an option “BIOS Update” which sees the BIOS .exe file on my USB device. :stuck_out_tongue: So, the answer is no, Windows is not necessary, unlike what it says on Dell’s website.

Of course I found this out only after downloading FreeDOS (twice! “USB” option is a VM image…). “Restoring” the ISO to the USB drive is great, but then I realized I couldn’t add the BIOS file to it. I also tried creating two partitions on the USB drive, the first one to restore the FreeDOS ISO to, and the second one to contain the BIOS update file, but it failed to boot. So maybe that’s what you meant by “a bit hairy to get there”…

Oh well, problem solved! BIOS is up to date.