Windows 10: Stuck in W10 1703 for far too long. Heavily customized. Pls help upgr.

Hi everyone, this is my first post. Best greetings to everyone!

I see from other posts that this forum is super helpful with so many people very knowledgeable and generous with their time so I'm very hopeful.

So... I'm trying to save a Windows installation. One that I've so deeply customized since 2014, and I'd hate to have to start from scratch. But for a long time can't seem to update at all, no matter how much I try. And I've tried on different occasions, the last one recently, for some 3 or 4 days nearly all focused on it. It's maddening, slightly at least. And I'm pretty patient in computer fixing matters...

Yeah. Stuck in Version 1703 (OS Build 15063.1418). For. Far. Too. Long.

By the way about "far too long", I know this is going to end up lengthy, so even though I know it usually takes the most detail possible to be able to help someone in these matters, I'm still absolutely grateful even to anyone who doesn't do anything other than reading this post.

And of course, I will strive to get back to everyone promptly and in adequate detail, about any follow-up questions, anyone may have.

To be quite honest, I'm actually (generally speaking) satisfied with how it's running, aside from issues I'll detail further down. But on one hand, I'm concerned with my potential exposure to exploits and whatnot (although I haven't had a virus since I think the 2000's, probably for not being overly reckless, and recently even starting to use Sandboxie if I'm experimenting with something even remotely suspicious). But from my understanding, exploits can happen to the most well-behaving users, as long as their systems have reachable vulnerabilities. I'd like to avoid getting f*, of course. On the other hand, there are (admittedly not so many) a few advantages from recent updates that I guess I'd enjoy having...

Oh but now I remember, re-reading the prev. paragraph, that I couldn't keep the system like this even if everything else was acceptable. As you can read a bit further down, my Windows Store is simply not working at all. And in a certain sense, that's a bit of ostracism... I'm left out of a significant part of the party, for apps that I can't install in other ways.

I have once upon a time gotten so annoyed at Windows Updates restarting my system without permission, that I found myself disabling auto-updates completely, trying to take enough care to do it myself often enough. I frankly don't remember if right after that I couldn't do manual updates. I'm not sure when I noticed it. Anyway, this I have wondered if it could have been the beginning of messing things up. I have followed instructions I found somewhere online (I can try to find it again if someone says it really matters) that told how to disable updates in not just one way but a few ways simultaneously, under the understanding that Windows still usually managed to sneakily get on with its updating show even when updates were supposedly disabled. I have tried to reverse the process and in the meantime I also found the Stopupdates10 app and tried to activate its functionality (hence, deactivating updates), and then the opposite, hoping it might "hit the right buttons" and get it back in order. No success with either of these approaches.

I've also recently tried to download the full iso of 1903 as well as 1909 and run it from a subfolder in C: with all peripherals disconnected. At some point, it kabooms and reverts everything.

I also thought it could be because long ago, I converted (non-destructively, with EaseUS Partition Master) my SSD from GPT to MBR. This was to be able to use VeraCrypt (at least back then there was no other way, today I don't know yet if it supports GPT already). Thinking it could be this, I completely decrypted my drive, and then reconverted it (again, obviously, non-destructively) to GPT. This changed nothing.

By the way, at some point in the more or less distant past, I thought that things could be failing exactly because of the encryption. I think this was what made me undo the VeraCrypt encryption, to no advantage. The MBR back to GPT came later.

A random list of annoying symptoms of my current situation is:

> The camera app just doesn't work. Errors I get vary slightly if I try to take a photo or a video.

Sorry -- we weren't able to save the photo. If you need it, here's the error code: 0xA00F424F(0X80004005)

Sorry -- we weren't able to save the video.If you need it, here's the error code: 0xA00F425C(0X80004005)

> Windows Store just doesn't work. I mean, I can browse it, but I can't update apps, or download new ones. Searching works with the instant-search in the search box, but when I click a result from there, I get this error page: Try that again. Page could not be loaded. Please try again later. Report this problem. Refresh the page. Code: 0x80004003. CV: 1ot10zAZWk6s+ss0. This is the error I get in pretty much everything that I would try on the Windows Store, by the way. If I find an app via googling, then it opens in the Windows Store, and if I try to download, it's the same error, as soon as I click "Get"

By the way, I also tried to find manual ways to install Windows Store apps (it was via PowerShell if I remember correctly) and even these didn't work.

Random things I tried:

> Removing any Virtual Machine software, and trying to find and remove any related drivers (namely, virtual network cards)

> Updating drivers for all my components

> Running sfc /scannow and dism in all the variations I could find. I even tried a batch script, to run these commands in the most superhero ways, that I think it was offered by someone here from TenForums (I could look it up if anyone asks) that people were raving about as it was exactly the miracle they needed. No miracle for me, either.

> When running DISM, I tried to use it with install.WIM, ESD file, xxx file, extracted image from within the ISO, etc, etc... (not remembering 100% the extensions right now, I guess.); I also tried this sourcing the mentioned files from isos of 1909, 1903, and my current version, 1703. No celebrations so far.

I can't think of more to write right now, so I guess I will just wait for all your PONGs to my PING, which again, I will be so grateful for.

I will try anything reasonable that you tell me to, even if I've already done it before.

And I guess I could end this post with a report about my system from Speccy: Dropbox - Computer report by Speccy.txt - Simplify your life

Thanks for your attention and I wish you a good one everyone!

-

:)

 

i update bios then black screen ???? pls help me 980ti

@smoka Great you fixed it and would be interesting to know how you did it. Care to list the basic steps you took to do it so that it can help others stuck in the same situation?

 

PC crashes after instalation W10 - need help, pls.

Hi,

Thank for your reply

I noticed that it is a duplicate case of the same issue, so I suggest you to follow the link below and post the query.

PC crashes after instalation W10 - need help, pls.

Thank you

 

W8.1 to W10 Upgrade installation taking far to long.


Still churning away. Its on 100% complete (total progress) with all steps at 100% but its just seemingly stuck at this now. The HD light has not gone out for the last 6.5 hours.