Windows 10 Update

Windows has a new update this month and I'm sure we are familiar with the hair-pulling frustration that often escorts these. I thought I'd throw together some of the tips I've gathered via rough experiences in the past and share them, and hopefully others will have some advice to add as well. My update today went off without a hitch today but there is almost certainly going to be others who aren't so lucky. A few updates ago my artist and I were having a discussion through Trello using our phones as we tried to get the bottom of why we were both dead in the water. I've been using Windows since 3.1, and Win 10 has given me more trouble than any other operating system before it (I skipped Vista, or from what I read about it, that'd possibly take the blue ribbon).

First, always have a thumb drive with Windows ready to go. You can create one very easily using their media creation tool, available via the link below. Unless you have another computer running Windows 10 that isn't currently broken due to a recent update, there's a fair chance you're going to need it at some point. Thumb drives are cheap, so I would suggest dedicating one to this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Second, backup, obviously. I've got a setup where I don't need to backup anything due to the myriad of hard drives in both my work station and the two servers I run in-house. If you can afford a second drive and can delay the update until you get it installed, I would highly suggest doing that. All of my work and personal files exist in places other than my C drive, and this has eliminated what would have been a lot of problems in the past. Worst case scenario with this setup is that I format my OS hard drive and just have to reinstall the software I use on a daily basis.

Third, make sure you have enough free space on your OS hard drive for the update. I would recommend having 20-30 GB of free space minimum. I've read articles concerning this most recent update that claim if you don't have the hard drive space, the update will fail and your out of luck. Microsoft has provided next-to-no information or warning on this issue, but a quick google search should provide plenty of information on it, but really there isn't much else to know beyond make sure you have room.

Once the update installs, your computer will reboot as always. Several instances in the past landed me with what appeared to be a dead computer: seemed like it booted up fine but there was nothing on any of my screens. After some trial-and-error, it turned out that Windows had reverted back to integrated graphics (I still don't understand this fully, I just know what happened) at some point. The only solution was to rip out my GPU and find a VGA cable to hook up to my one monitor that actually has a VGA port. Once Windows made it through the first post-update reboot, I was able to put my GPU back in place and proceed as usual.

Last but not least, once you have an "updated" copy of Windows 10 ready to go, immediately go back and check for updates again. Many times I have updated Windows only to find that one of them didn't take for whatever reason, and you don't want to get into a situation where Windows forces that remaining update when you don't expect it. I always repeat this process until it finally says I am up-to-date.

Best of luck to those of us running this malevolent OS!

 

My last experience with this was performance being crippled with the Creators Update. Had to roll back to make stuff playable/workable again.

Interestingly, last time I tried to install Windows from a USB stick it failed, repeatedly. It didn't have drivers for my SATA ports and thus couldn't see my HDDs to install onto, and wouldn't find those drivers on the disks supplied with the hardware.

In frustration, I jumped on my laptop and burned an install DVD, and that worked first shot. That really surprised me, as a DVD is ~3 gigs smaller than the USB drive was, so surely it'd have less drivers to work with? (Maybe drivers themselves weren't the issue.)

 

How long ago was this? I don't think SATA drivers have been an issue since... Windows 8.

 

Thanks for sharing that, I'll have to dig out my stack of DVD's because I don't want to run into this in the future. I'm sure they're somewhere around the same place I store my VGA cable and 3 1/2" floppies. I don't even think my DVD drive is plugged into anything because I've never used it.

 

'bout 6 months.

And I agree, it shouldn't have been an issue.

I had to pop over to the supermarket and buy a spindle of disks, because we didn't bring them with us last time we moved house as we hadn't used them in ages. It was sheer luck that I had access to a burner for my laptop, because it doesn't have one built in...

 

My sole experience with the update process was when Anniversary updated to Creators. I don't know if there would have been performance problems like @angrypenguin mentioned because I never got to the point to test it out thanks to the update breaking entirely too many things (eg the Start Menu was resetting every reboot).

Once I discovered that Microsoft was only making a token effort on Q&A I decided it was time to thoroughly investigate the update process and discovered with the group policies editor in Windows 10 Pro that you can completely disable all updates (or configure them to be on your terms).

Below settings are found in Edit Group Policy (gpedit) under either:

Computer Config -> Admin -> Windows Components -> Windows Update.

Spoiler

Or Computer Config -> Admin -> Network -> BITS

Spoiler

Additionally the OS will start showing a nag screen if you disable these telling you that an update is available and that you will need to manually start the updater. It will show this nag screen every two or three reboots. You can disable that too with this script.

Code (csharp):

1. cd /d "%Windir%\System32"
2. takeown /F MusNotification.exe
3. icacls MusNotification.exe /deny Everyone:(X)
4. takeown /F MusNotificationUx.exe
5. icacls MusNotificationUx.exe /deny Everyone:(X)

If for some reason you need to re-enable it you can use this script.

Code (csharp):

1. cd /d "%Windir%\System32"
2. icacls MusNotification.exe /remove:d Everyone
3. icacls MusNotification.exe /grant Everyone:F
4. icacls MusNotification.exe /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller"
5. icacls MusNotification.exe /remove:g Everyone
6. icacls MusNotificationUx.exe /remove:d Everyone
7. icacls MusNotificationUx.exe /grant Everyone:F
8. icacls MusNotificationUx.exe /setowner "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller"
9. icacls MusNotificationUx.exe /remove:g Everyone

Finally I have my connection set to metered. It was the old way of disabling updates. I don't remember any more if it is necessary to do it or not but it seems to only affect Windows Update. Everything else seems to ignore it.

Spoiler

 

Anniversary update was absolutely brutal so I feel your pain. One of my servers is about the size of two slices of bread stacked on top of each other and so very little is internal, which made the process even more daunting. I ended up having to purchase a second Pro upgrade because I refused to go through the BS of getting in contact with Microsoft to get it activated with the license I already owned once I was finally able to boot again.

 

I've had no issues with updating any of my machines with one exception: Unity will not connect and so I am forced to work offline. Any one else experiencing this? I haven't done any troubleshooting yet but I will once it gets annoying enough.

Given my recent experience with Win10 updates, I'll consider myself lucky regardless.

Edit: Should have stated I've had the same problem with both 2018.2.10 and 2018.2.11