Windows 10: Update from 1511 to 1607 failing

Sooner or later. It's a long couple of days organizing programs and reinstalling everything, and then another few gathering license keys and activations from those few that don't recognize clean installs. The good news is that 1511 is working fine, so with major updates deferred there's no immediate pressure.

Btw, I created a recovery USB, but it also went dead after looking like it was going to work. And that architecture incompatibility which developed midstream, I have no idea where that's coming from.

 

Did you try an in-place repair install ? Download the 1607 ISO from here - Access Denied to your desktop, r-click to mount and run setup.exe from the image. I've used this method to upgrade several computers that I service by remote control, so no usb option, and even directly from 8.1.

 

I tried an in-place repair install when I first had problems to no avail, but haven't tried the ISO route. Not sure why it would work when the others aren't, but why not? Thanks,

 

What I proposed is NOT the same as Reset in the Recovery options which you use if your computer is not running well. You are essentially installing 1607 directly from the same ISO that you would burn to a usb but w/o boot files. This option is only available if you can sign in to your computer which you apparently can do w/o any problem. Like I said, I have remotely transferred an ISO image to another computer remotely via Teamviewer and upgraded in place and never had a failure after restart. It's faster if you elect not to do Windows updates before installing and you can either keep your files and programs or start clean. Good Luck and let us know your results.

 

I tried before seeing your addition, so did load the updates first. It ran through the first install round completely, then failed on the reboot after the Windows screen (four windows + circling dots); that is, after the Windows screen the screen flashed then went blank (black). After many minutes, I stopped and rolled back and finally got a useful error message. See the screenshot below.

The specific numbered error and the general experience of reboot windows running on and on seems to be or have been quite common with the Anniversary edition: 0xC1900101 - 0x20017‬‏ - بحث Google. I've looked through a few of the proposed solutions so far, but haven't seen anything definitive. They are all over the map, a lot of them quite quirky. One common theme seems to be to disconnect the wireless router from the computer, as well as other things (I run the cable box through a router to the desktop). I will look at it tomorrow.

 

Try the ISO mount again but w/o grabbing updates first, which may be installing an updated but incompatible network driver. You could not only disconnect everything from the computer incl the router but also disable the wireless adapter in Device Manager and, don't know if it's been mentioned already, but if you have an anti virus other than Defender, disable or uninstall it. Good Luck

 

I'm running the update right now with everything disconnected or disabled, and it's stuck at the second startup. Uninstalling MBAM seems to have gotten it past the first restart, or maybe it was coincidence, but in any case not this one. The system SSD light quit flashing entirely with this second restart and that hasn't changed 10 minutes in, which can't be a good sign. Oh well... Thanks for the suggestions,

The message I started getting around the fourth try about retrieving the system image was (paraphrase) "The OS version of the processor architecture or the Windows Recovery Environment is not the same as the computer it backed up." Would using a USB stick to start Windows that was formatted as FAT32 cause that? I know Windows version on it is x64, because that's the default on an x64 machine when choosing the version of the setup files to download to the flash drive. I can't think of anything else, although I think the stick was formatted as that all the way through.

 

Have you run chkdsk and all volumes you have?

 

Yes, run on system drive.

I updated the BIOS today from the pre- to post-1607 versions and tried 1607 again. Got to the third reboot this time and stalled. Alarming thing was when I booted to a USB stick, the initial Repair link led to a blue screen that never budged. Had to use a repair disk - finally figured out how to get it to boot - and restore from a system image. Strange happenings...

 

You were very specific about System Drive. There was another thread where individuals were having issues with various installs and or boots. Their solution was to disconnect other drives. I would also run chkdsk on the just to scan and report.

 

Success at last! The other drives scanned ok, but this time I tried two additional things (with the ISO version):

1) At the following page, the writer suggested sticking in a Win 7 or 8.1 CD and using the command prompt repair/troubleshooting choice to run a couple of Bootrec commands, along with a bootsec one. I couldn't figure out the latter, but I did run the first two for what they were worth. How to: Troubleshoot common Setup and Stop Errors during Windows - Microsoft Community (under OxC1900101-Ox20017 at the bottom).

2) More likely what got it over the hump, I disconnected all drives but the system one and left them that way until all the updates were downloaded and installed.

Thanks for all the help,

 

Turns out I celebrated too soon. About four hours in, while I was running a new system image and a quick Windows Defender scan, a couple programs I had open went nonresponding. Then the scan and image soon looked they weren't going anywhere. I opened CCleaner and started its scan, which hung at 23%. So I shut down the forced way, but restart ran on. So I tried to do some restores and repairs from a USB stick and a repair CD, but nothing took. The one thing I completely forgot to try was sfc /scannow. But in any case, another repair CD eventually took and I did get the image restore to run back to 1511 (the 1607 image hadn't completed). So that's where I am, knowing how to install 1607 now but not sure how stable it is, at least here.

 

You are as persistent as I am.

Should you try this again could I suggest that you audit your existing 1511 drivers in some detail. Then as soon as you get 1607 in do another audit and compare differences. Maybe some members could suggest a tool that gives such a snapshot with driver vendors and versions. I tried some and went manual.

 

I regularly update programs and went through the main drivers before the final approach, such as BIOS, graphics, audio, Intel, etc. Belarc has a free (and paid) utility that lists everything in some detail, which I printed but haven't gone through.

 

I tried the 1511 to 1607 update again yesterday and after what appeared to be great success ultimately the only choice short of a clean install was to go back via a system image. I've got a list of the 31 steps that ended in that outcome, but I'll save those for another time. Most important are just a few:

1) After the successful update, I reconnected the LAN cable, then drives and finally USB cables, and the first problem of a startup hanging arose with the latter. By disconnecting everything again and using a repair disk, I was able use a system restore back to 1607 (surprised me, as I thought it would go back to 1511).

2) Then I repeated the process of reconnecting drives/cable process, this time literally one by one with lots of reboots, and it succeeded (boot time was the fastest ever in Win 10, repeatedly).

3) After a few hours in 1607, my default file manager, XYplorer, went nonresponsive and wouldn't come out of it for 15-20 minutes, i.e., wouldn't close via Task Mgr or the pop ups (X) - I tried each way numerous times. Other programs were working fine during all this, except Internet Download Mgr at the point where it needed to write a completed download to disk. At that point, I rebooted and tried everything again, and the same thing happened with XYplorer and IDM, which eventually affected other programs. So another restart, but this time the computer shutdown cycle (restarting) ran on and on until I stopped it after 2 hours. Another cold boot went into repair mode, but that went on and on too. Finally, I tried the Repair Disk, but it reported being unable to repair the problem. Ultimately, the only way to get back into my computer was reloading the 1511 system image from an external drive. What a drag.

The thought that came to mind during the XYplorer hang was could there be some kind of memory conflict with 1607. I have 32 gb RAM and it's checked out ok, and memory usage never showed going above 24%, so there shouldn't have been a problem there. And no one has reported anything similar on the XYplorer forum. Also sfc /scannow and chkdsk returned nothing. That leaves a clean install as the next (eventual) step, but even then this last experience has left me wondering if there's not more to it.