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UEFI help needed ...

MrFex

New Member
Hello,


I've picked up my SP3 (i3) from Ebay today and I am super happy with it. The previous owner had a brand new i7 laying around. He fully reset the device back to Windows 8 original and I was hoping to get Windows 10. At the moment I have installed all updates but I am not getting any Windows 10 upgrade notifications.

Consider that Windows already consumes 30gb I was thinking I might do a fresh Windows 10 installation to get hoping it would have a smaller storage footprint.

Anyway, when I boot using a USB flash memory it is ignored. Yes the flash memory is FAT32 with Rufus.

So I booted UEFI I can see :

Version 2.16.2243 (is that good, should it be 3.11.xyz?)
TPM Enabled (cannot change)
Secure Boot Control enabled (cannot change)
Alternate boot order - SSD (cannot change)
Advanced Device Security (I can go into, but cannot change any option)
Device information (can see some info)
Administrator password (cannot select)
Exit setup (works)

So, what is up with this? Should I be able to change those settings? I've tried installing a Firmware Tool on Windows 8.1. and loaded Powershell. I cannot change a setting there either. The error message Powershell gives me is something like "Value doesn't meet regular expression". It will do so for every setting.

Another thing I noticed it that UEFI always asks for an administrator password. I just press enter (empty) and it will go on. Typing anything will always result in a error, so I believe the administrator password is indeed "".

Hope you guys can help.

ps; i can boot from the USB disk fine when I use Windows Advanced Startup and boot from USB there. Then I get the Windows 10 menu from my USB stick. I'm not comfortable using that because if I mess up my current Windows install I might not have any way of getting back into USB boot.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
Obiwan says the number displayed on the UEFI screen is not the number you're looking for.

Go to Control Panel - Administration Tools - System Information

Look at: Bios Version/date
 
Last edited:
OP
M

MrFex

New Member
thank you. it says 3.11.0950.

anyone have a clue to why I cant change any of the settings???
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Contact the seller.... it is possible that this SP3 was Enterprise Managed and is locked down via policy.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
Aside: I always thought Firmware's didn't get rolled back but I just did a REFRESH on my Surface 3 and the Firmware is back to Original Day One version. That might clear your issue up.
 
OP
M

MrFex

New Member
good point, thats worth a shot. when you say reset do you mean using a bootable recovery disk, because that isn't an option
 
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