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Truth Wins |
I have an older desktop PC that came with Windows 7 that I upgraded to Windows 10 using MS's free upgrade. For the last few months, Windows 10 updates have been wreaking havoc on my system. Naturally, MS pushes Windows 10 updates now whether you want or need them. Twice in the last 6 months I've had to do a complete reinstall of my OS because errors arose that could not be resolved using MS's suggested fixes. This morning, I got the blue-screen-of-death with the 0xc000021a error. None of MS's suggested fixes worked. Doing anything they suggested took me into a loop that took me right back to that error. So, again today, I had to do a wipe and a clean install. Since I couldn't get into Windows and couldn't get a prompt to load from a disk, I had to revert back to Windows 7, then apply the free upgrade again. Just a heads up to anyone that might have been affected, you have until December 31 to get Windows 10 free, then it ends. Since MS has stopped offering the free upgrade to anyone that doesn't use assistive devices, so you'll have to use this link to get it. But they don't verify whether or not you actually use assistive devices. https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...T5tmmaSJEt_GLMQEqg)() Now, MS has even seen fit to screw up this upgrade by providing a corrupted wimgapi.dll file in their installer. So when you try to install, you will most likely get an error. The error is their jacked up wimgapi.dll file in their Windows10Upgrade folder that you will see on your main drive. You will need to copy the wimgapi.dll in your Windows/System32 file and overwrite the messed up wimgapi.dll file in the Windows10Upgrade folder to make the install work. Once you do that and try and reinstall, it will go smoothly. Apparently, this is a pretty big issue. I've seen a whole lot of bitching online about the latest Windows 10 push that screwed many users to the point they had to do an OS wipe and reinstall. I guess soon I will either have to upgrade my computer to one that came with Windows 10, or buy a copy of Windows 10 since MS has found a way to make my backup of Windows 10 that I made from my free upgrade not work. _____________ "I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature." - Henry David Thoreau | ||
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eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Why didn't you just download the Windows 10 installation media onto a USB stick and do the clean install from there? You didn't need to go back to Windows 7 and then "upgrade" to 10. Just install 10. Your license to use 10 already exists and is tied to your computer hardware (called a digital entitlement). Here's the link to download the installation media for future reference: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...e-download/windows10 This is the "copy of Windows 10" that you are talking about. The tool allows you to download the full and complete version of Windows onto a DVD or USB stick, to install on whatever computer you want. If you are coming from an older version of Windows, then you'll need to go through the upgrade, activate your Windows 10 entitlement, then you can use the installation media for a clean install. If you've already activated Windows 10 on your computer, then you can just use the installation tool to re-install whenever you want. Even if you are building a brand new computer, you can use the installation media to install a brand new copy of Windows 10, then you can buy an activation key online either directly through Windows or from a third party. | |||
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Mensch |
This works well ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Yidn, shreibt un fershreibt" "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." -Bomber Harris | |||
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| Truth Wins |
Because I couldn't get it to work. I couldn't get on the internet. I couldn't get into windows. And when I got into system tools, I couldn't get an option to restore from any media except the restore partition on my HD. Last time I had an issue I was able to reistall W10 from a thumb drive. For some reason, that option did not exist this time. I have not idea why. _____________ "I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature." - Henry David Thoreau | |||
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| If you see me running try to keep up  |
Yep | |||
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| The success of a solution usually depends upon your point of view |
If Win 10 is giving you so much trouble why are you running it? Does it do so much more for you then Win 7 that it is worth all the troubles? “We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid.” - 83v45magna "I think it's important that people understand free speech doesn't mean free from consequences societally or politically or culturally." -Pranjit Kalita, founder and CIO of Birkoa Capital Management | |||
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| Truth Wins |
Not really. But I have three other PC in the house that are much newer and W10 works well on them. Just trying to be consistent across PCs. _____________ "I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature." - Henry David Thoreau | |||
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| No double standards |
I have three brothers that are "propeller heads", ie, computer nerds with different hardware platforms, operating systems, user communities. They are in agreement, never do an "upgrade", too many glitches, always do a clean install. It may cost more in the beginning, but will pay for itself with reduced headaches and hassles. (I just had this conversation this evening with one brother, will order a clean install Win 10 Pro tomorrow). "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it" - Judge Learned Hand, May 1944 | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Just for future reference, or in case you are still having trouble with it, here are a few tips: 1) You should be making regular backups of your computer. A good backup strategy would have you up and running again in the time it takes for your backup drive to spit the data back up onto your primary disc. 2) Download the installation media onto a USB stick and keep it handy. The installation media is your ultimate nuke and pave option--you could use the installation media to install Windows on a completely bare, brand new hard drive if you had to. 3) Alternatively, since you can get the installation media off the internet at any time (using another computer if you had to), you can also use Windows to create a Recovery Drive instead. A recovery drive is similar to installation media, but it has some of your system files copied over to it. Sometimes having the system files is a good thing, other times, I prefer to start with a blank canvas. 4) Familiarize yourself with the concept of boot drives and boot order. When you push the power button, your BIOS (mini software built into your motherboard) looks at the drives that are attached to your computer and searches for the Operating System that it will command to start, or boot up. 99% of the time, the BIOS will find Windows installed on drive C and that is the Operating System you end up using. If you are having a problem with Windows installed on drive C, you may have to boot up from a different drive, such as a DVD drive, a USB drive, or a second hard drive. Not all things can boot up--you can't stick a USB drive with random windows files on it into the computer and boot from that. The drive/disc must have some basic software installed or embedded into it that will allow it to boot up. Creating Installation Media or Recovery Drives (discussed above) gives you a disc or USB stick that you can boot up from in case Windows on drive C isn't working. You typically can't repair an engine while it's running, and similarly, you typically can't repair Windows from within Windows. You need to turn it off and use tools from the outside. Once you have some sort of bootable media made, you have to learn how to enter into your BIOS and change the order in which the BIOS looks at drives to boot up. Usually the C drive is first, but if your goal is to start up from a bootable disc in your DVD drive labeled D:, or your USB drive labeled E:, then you'll have to move those around to get the drive you want to boot up first. 5) If you had a backup to recover from, you probably could have fixed everything pretty easily. If no backup, then the Recovery Drive might have helped with a new installation of windows while trying to keep some of your settings and personal files. Failing that, a reformat like you did was the way to go, but using the Installation Media on a bootable USB thumb drive would have given you the cleanest install. Lastly, since you seemed to have gotten it all sorted out, you should keep a copy of the Installation Media going forward in case you ever needed to reinstall Windows. It's the equivalent of the Windows disc that they used to give you when you bought a new computer, and it's kind of silly how many people never get around to making one until after they have problems with their computer. | |||
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| Member |
I have an older PC that I did the upgrade 3 times trying to get it to work....it is running 7 now. From my experience and from others that I know experience if they upgraded to 10 and it went smooth, not issues, they have been virtually problem free. If they did the upgrade and were having issues they have had consistent issues. I would say just stick with 7. Houston Texas, if the heat don't kill ya, the skeeters will. | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
That was what I was wondering, as well. "Doctor, it hurts when I do <this>!" "Don't do <that>, then." "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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Member |
sorry for the thread drift, I'm still running Windows XP, barely. It is buggy and extremely slow. I need to upgrade to something, is Windows 10 my only option. Also, how can I download to a thumb drive? I can't find a command that will let me change the destination from the "download file" to the flash drive. Bob Carpe Scrotum | |||
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| Truth Wins |
Your computer has to have sufficient resources to handle Windows 10. I'm not sure what the system requirements are, you'll have to check and see if your PC has the requirement. I think only Windows 7 amd 8 users were eligible for the free upgrade to 10. So, if you want to upgrade, I think you'll have to buy the upgrade. You MAYy be able to run Windows 7 on an XP machine. I know 7 would run on a Vista machine easily. But not sure about XP. As far as creating a recovery thumb drive, it's fairly easy. Once you decide on what operating system to go with (or stick with), just google the procedure. _____________ "I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature." - Henry David Thoreau | |||
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| Truth Wins |
I wasn't getting any option to boot from any drive other than the one that held Windows 7. I had a flash drive with 10 on it. And all my stuff was backed up to a second hard drive and another flash drive. _____________ "I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature." - Henry David Thoreau | |||
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quarter MOA visionary |
The reason everyone is having a Windows Update problem is that all of the support people left Microsoft and went to Apple. I just got a call (on the landline) that my Apple ID was corrupt and press "1" for support. I pressed "1" and was promptly connected to India. Of course I never had nor will ever have anything Apple but I had to listen as we know Apple is never wrong.  | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
By default the BIOS boots to your C drive where Windows resides. You have to manually change the boot order in your BIOS. There will be no prompts. To enter your BIOS menu, you'll have to press a key (different for each computer, but usually DEL, F1, F2 or F11). From there, you change your boot order so that you can enter into the contents of your flash drive before Windows starts. | |||
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| Member |
The only thing I know how to do is turn the computer off and on. My laptop is a 2011 HP that want's to do a update about every month. I do it, sometimes it runs better sometimes it doesn't. I bought a new Samsung Notebook 9 pro a couple days ago. I just haven't wanted to go all the BS that goes with getting it set up yet. And as I am writing this I have been notified that Microsoft needs to update again. I just wish I knew you what you guys do when it comes to these computers. | |||
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Republican in training |
The only time I had a bad experience with 10 was after an upgrade from 7. Finding the latest drivers and uninstalling existing ones/reinstalling latest kind of helped, but it was never perfect. After a clean install - my home built (somewhat high-end) machine that was created a few years before 10 existed has been rock solid. I installed it in October of 2015 (I remember as I was stuck at home during the flooding here). Not sure how old the OP's machine is... but 10 in general is the best OS they've created by far. -------------------- I like Sigs and HK's, and maybe Glocks | |||
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