Difficulty installing Windows 10 32-bit on XPS8700

Have you tried setting Load Legacy OPROM to Enable and Secure Boot to Disable in the BIOS?

This link claims to show how to enable Win 10 64-bit to run 16-bit apps.

YRMV!

Hi Ron,

That procedure only works for Win10 32-bit, there isn't any way a 64-bit operating system can run 16-bit apps - except through a virtual machine or DOS emulation (vDos, etc). 

Hi Philip,

That will presumably mean I will need to abandon UEFI, right?  I was trying to avoid that, because I gather that UEFI boot is faster, and has better security.

Yup, tried that - I got this:

Only 64 Bit Windows OS support a UEFI Boot, so if you want to install 32 Bit you will need to use a Legacy Boot.

>  Only 64 Bit Windows OS support a UEFI Boot, so if you want to install 32 Bit you will need to use a Legacy Boot.

Thanks @Philip_Yip, I didn't realise that.  I'll try it tomorrow.

R

All good.  The installation resulted in Win10 Home on the PC.  I entered my Win10 Pro key and it rejected it, I then found out about the trick of upgrading to Win10 Pro with the internet disconnected and using the temporary key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T and then entering my own key and activating it.

Thanks for your help.

I have the same problem. 50% of my software is 16bit based and the cost to upgrade is 10x the cost of the dell desktop. I bought an Inspirion 6 months ago and still can't load any 32 bit os. I have installed  a VM, and dos emulator. Neither work as good as a real 32 bit os. I should have just returned the computer to costco. This has been a real pain.  Dell tech support is pretty useless since they off loaded it to India.  They have no idea how to install an OS even going so far as to tell me that I can't upgrade win 10 64 to win 11.   If you found a way to install win 10 32 bit on a uefi 64 bit pc, please let me know.  

@jefinsd  - Have you followed Microsoft's instructions to downgrade to 32-bit Windows?

And if you downgrade, 64-bit apps won't run and most apps are no longer supporting their 32-bit versions, if they had them...

I have tried that approach. I get inspirion 3880   No bootable device found error.  There is no legacy boot option in 3880 bios.  I can boot using same thumb drive if it has 64 bit os.  I really don't care about 64 bit s/w as all of mine are 16 or 32 bit.  i have also been trying using modified windows 10 64 bit s/w which allows me limited 16 bit ntvdm. But it is not nearly as good as real  ntvdm on a 32 bit machine.  The best option is to downgrade from win 10 64 to win 10 32.  win 11 does not offer 32 bit so I will never upgrade.   Having only 4gb of memory vs 12gb is a choice I can live with if I can get my 16 bit apps to work. 

Not sure I agree about not running a 64-bit OS, or the poor emulation experience you reportedly had, however ...

Not all new machines can run in Legacy-mode or boot old OS (sorta like they are locked in UEFI/SecureBoot mode).

You might have been better-off buying an old (refurbished or off-lease) Dell Optiplex or similar.

Old OS on old hardware. Might as well be no newer than 2010 and it will then likely be Legacy-BIOS only (non UEFI).

I really need to be able to install win 7 32 bit on a new dell  uefi computer.  That is the bottom line.  No other option will be as good for speed.  

I have 2  Dell Precision T3500.  Both run win 7  32bit and win 10 32 bit.  It is fairly easy to plop in a new ssd and install windows 32 bit or 64 bit on these machines.  The software I use is 16 & 32 bit.      The amount of time required to convert custom coding in dbase III to windows version is over 80 hrs.  Not to mention the cost of windows version of dbase.   Buying another 2010 or earlier dell doesn't make sense.     I also use  microsoft briefcase to sync between win 10 laptop and t3500.   briefcase does not exist in win 10 nor 11.   briefcase while slower than various sync programs does make it easy to update many files while checking each file to ensure master file is not overwritten.  

there are a lot of users out there that really need to run 16 bit s/w on newest machines.   So many in fact that there are communities out there trying to modify win 10 64 bit to run 16 bit apps.   NTVDM was removed by microsoft in win 10 64 bit.  But they could have left it in and there would be no problem.  So right now I have 2 pc side by side. One win 10 64bit that runs only 1 program  cuz that company won't run on win 7,  and the t3500 that runs all others on win 7.  Also... the text display is different between win 7 and 10. with 10 being blurry to my eyes.   I run quicken, quickbook word, excel , edge all 32 bit all  on win 7 32 ,bit.  No need to rent s/w from microsoft when I own these.  Cloud storage is great if you always have internet.  But transferring  10gb of data every day to the cloud is very slow.  And when you go to destinations w/no internet, you are out of luck w/o programs and data on the local machine.   All of my email is downloaded,  worked on offline ,then uploaded to server.  

@jefinsd 

Systems past 6th gen core anything WILL NOT RUN 32 bit anything because they are class3 bios.  No legacy booting allowed.  64 bit only windows 10 only.

No windows xp/vista/7/8 at all EVER.

CLASS 3 bios does not have legacy anything and requires 64 bit windows 10.

This was discussed at the 2017 uefi forum and finalized in 2020.

Brian_Richardson_Intel_UEFI last mile