Windows 10: If you are not offered Windows 10 version 1903, try disabling hard drive encryption

When Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows 10 version 1903 some months ago, I wanted to upgrade one of my machines running Windows 10 version 1809 to the new feature update.

The update was not offered via Windows Update despite Microsoft claiming that the feature update was broadly available some time after the initial release for all systems not affected by any of the blocking issues. Microsoft also stated that it would display the reason for that but that did not happen either.

I decided to try other updating means, in particular using the update assistant for Windows 10 first and when that failed installation media. As you may have guessed already, all of these failed. While I managed to get quite far using these tools, the upgrades would fail eventually during installation and the old version of Windows 10 was restored. The error message was not really of any help as it was a generic error that led nowhere.

The device's hard drives were all encrypted including the system partition. I knew that Vera Crypt, the software used for the encryption, supported feature updates. Previous versions of the software did not, and I had to decrypt the main partition prior to any feature updates to make them go through.

I decided that I wanted to analyze the issue more deeply; since I knew that this would mean rebooting the system many times over as it was unlikely that the first try resulted in success, I decided to decrypt the system partition to speed up the process. I set up Vera Crypt to use a non-standard PIM for better protection. One downside of this is that the initial booting takes a lot longer than with default values so that decrypting the drive would make the entire process go through faster.

Decryption did not take long and the creation of a backup was also done in a matter of minutes.

I decided to check for updates one last time on the machine using Windows Update. Imagine my surprise when Windows Update listed the feature update to Windows 10 version 1903 on the update page.



The update was not offered for months; could it be that the decryption of the hard drive unlocked whatever blocked the update from being delivered to the machine?

A check prior to the operation did not result in the update being offered. While there is still a small chance that Microsoft enabled it right after the first check and before the second check, I'd put my money on encryption being the issue in that case.

More data is needed to come to a final conclusion. If you use Vera Crypt or other encryption software on Windows 10 machines, let me know how the updating worked out for you.

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BitLocker Encrypted Hard Drive to MAC

Hi,



Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community. I regret the inconvenience caused to you. Let me help you.



I suggest you to perform below mentioned steps to disable BitLocker.

To disable BitLocker I would suggest you try the following steps and see if it helps.

• 
  Press Windows key + X and click on
  Control Panel.
  
• 
  Change View by from Category
  to Large Icons/Small Icons.
  
• 
  Click on BitLocker Drive Encryption and click on
  Turn BitLocker Off.
  
• 
  Follow on screen instructions. Click on Decrypt the Drive
  when the message appears.
  

I would suggest you click on the link below and refer the following article.

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

Scenario 12: Turning Off BitLocker Drive Encryption (Windows 7)

(You can refer the steps in the above link as they are applicable for Windows 10 as well)



Check if it helps.



I hope the information helps. Please keep us posted on the issue. We will be happy to assist you accordingly.

Thank you.

 

Encrypted drive then reinstalled Windows and now can't get in!?!?!?

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



We understand that you are unable to access the encrypted drive after re-installing Windows, we will look into this for you. In order to get clarity and to assist you accordingly, please reply with the answers to the questions below.

• Did you enabled BitLocker on the hard drive before reinstallation of Windows 10?
  
• Are you getting any option to enter a BitLocker Recovery key?
  
• What is the error message you receive when you try to login to the PC?

However, if you have encrypted the drive using BitLocker password, I would suggest you to enter the key to decrypt the drive, and you can refer the article

Find my BitLocker recovery key.



Meanwhile, we would suggest you to post your query in
TechNet forums, where we have expertise and support professionals
who are well equipped with the knowledge on Windows BitLocker & Windows drive encryption to assist you with the appropriate troubleshooting steps.



For further information on BitLocker Device encryption and decryption you can refer these articles.

Device encryption in Windows 10

Disable-BitLocker

Overview of BitLocker Device Encryption in Windows
10



Aditya Roy

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.