[sf-lug] Best way to install a .exe firmware updater

[Akkana Peck]

So, I've had my new laptop for a month. Back in July, Rick mentioned
the Lenovo Carbon X1, and although it was a hair bigger than the 13"
models I'd been considering, the weight and features sucked me in.
The Gen 7 is a great Linux laptop, with only a couple of problems:
in particular, a glitchy trackpad addressed by a firmware update
that Lenovo only distributes as a .exe.

(Before you say it, Rick: Yes, I knew buying the current generation
had a risk of some as-yet unknown hardware issues. I took that risk
knowingly because of much better features/price, and in the hope
there would eventually be fixes for any Gen 7 specific problems.)

Things I've tried: I've managed to boot from Win PE, Windows 10
Installer and Windows 10 Recovery, but none of them can run the
firmware updater (which claims to be 64-bit, but I don't know how to
confirm that). I've seen references to "Win to Go" sticks but people
are vague on how they create them. I tried using qemu to install Win
10 onto a USB stick, but after 3 hours the install ended up in an
infinite reboot loop. I also tried Rufus (in Windows in Virtualbox)
but it errors out partway through without a clear error message.

Has anybody here found a solution for running 64-bit .exes on a
machine that doesn't have a Windows boot installed?

        ...Akkana