Windows 10 Updates: Multiple PC failures to install: What's Going On?

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#1985118 28-Mar-2018 20:21

sbiddle: $400 to reinstall Windows?!?!?!?!

And most likely they don't even install your previous programs nor do they configure your email client or make sure that your AV is up to date.

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ANglEAUT

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#1985125 28-Mar-2018 20:37

frednz: ... I'm not sure of the commands needed to reverse them out of the system ...

Good thinking. It pays to be careful.

frednz: ... or whether they could actually do harm to the computer.

These steps are not going to blow any hardware component of your PC. In the unlikely event that this script borks your Windows installation, those people charging you $400 will at least have a reason to earn the $400.

frednz: ... I might just wait for a while to see if Microsoft comes up with an "official" update which fixes the problem ...

Sometimes WUA gets borked enough that you never get future updates. At least you are aware of this problem and can review it later.

frednz: ... I'm a bit hesitant to try the "scriptcenter" option, I'm not sure whether this has been approved by Microsoft for use by the general public?
The page says: "This script allow reset the Windows Update Agent resolving issues with Windows Update."

Script Centre is community contributed collection of scripts. These were not developed by Microsoft. Hence the disclaimer at the bottom.

"reset the Windows Update Agent" means only flushing all changes of the Windows Update Agent components and correctly re-registering the components with the OS. Those steps are all documented in MS KB articles going all the way back to Windows 95'. The person that wrote the scripts made his and your life easy and is saving you the trouble of scouring the Internet to find all the relevant steps. You can run those scripts with a high degree of confidence.

Edit: Formatting

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

1101

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#1985287 29-Mar-2018 10:13

sbiddle:

$400 to reinstall Windows?!?!?!?!

People fail to realise just how much time is involved . You cant risk half arsing it .

- backup ALL users data : some people have hundreds of Gigs of data to backup . Even when customer says dont need data, backup anyway (have had cust
say dont need anything saved/backed up , then come back with 'wheres my photos' , wheres my old email )
- backup email settings , extract the email passwords (can bet many users dont know it)
- backup FF saved passwords , FF & chrome bookmarks
- wipe & reload (the easy part)
- sort out Windows drivers : that can take some time . May find manufacturer (cough HP) hasnt a clue what driver for for the hardware
& have a multichoice of drivers to try for each hardware device :eg 4 differnet NIC drivers on the driver page, same with wifi etc etc
- start the Winupdate process . Wait. Restart , More winupdates. Wait restart , more win updates. Keep doing that till no more updates
- reload office : sort out activation issues .
- Sort out issues with pirated software or software loaded illegally on too many PC's (that happens too often) . Waste alot of time with this .
- install AV, Acrobat, Chrome etc etc
- copy back data
- resetup email, import old email . Sort out issues with POP3 wanting to redownload 5-10Gb of old emails (unfortunately , all too common)

so , thats a 1/2 hour job

To be honest, its usually a matter of how much is the customer willing to pay, rather than how much it should cost
I dont think anyone would be willing to pay $400 . It may be because the Tech would need to spend ALOT of time in the workshop to get through this , when they could be onsite\callout making some real money

richrdh18

208 posts

Master Geek

#1985302 29-Mar-2018 10:43

1101:

sbiddle:

$400 to reinstall Windows?!?!?!?!

People fail to realise just how much time is involved . You cant risk half arsing it .

- backup ALL users data : some people have hundreds of Gigs of data to backup . Even when customer says dont need data, backup anyway (have had cust
say dont need anything saved/backed up , then come back with 'wheres my photos' , wheres my old email )
- backup email settings , extract the email passwords (can bet many users dont know it)
- backup FF saved passwords , FF & chrome bookmarks
- wipe & reload (the easy part)
- sort out Windows drivers : that can take some time . May find manufacturer (cough HP) hasnt a clue what driver for for the hardware
& have a multichoice of drivers to try for each hardware device :eg 4 differnet NIC drivers on the driver page, same with wifi etc etc
- start the Winupdate process . Wait. Restart , More winupdates. Wait restart , more win updates. Keep doing that till no more updates
- reload office : sort out activation issues .
- Sort out issues with pirated software or software loaded illegally on too many PC's (that happens too often) . Waste alot of time with this .
- install AV, Acrobat, Chrome etc etc
- copy back data
- resetup email, import old email . Sort out issues with POP3 wanting to redownload 5-10Gb of old emails (unfortunately , all too common)

so , thats a 1/2 hour job

To be honest, its usually a matter of how much is the customer willing to pay, rather than how much it should cost
I dont think anyone would be willing to pay $400 . It may be because the Tech would need to spend ALOT of time in the workshop to get through this , when they could be onsite\callout making some real money

Once upon a time when I was in my own PC support business I would do a lot of this kind of work. Yes, more hours are involved than what one can charge for but you still had to make it worth your while.

I used to charge 2.5hrs approx $250 for a pick up and return, complete backup (acronis), complete re-install of OS, updates etc and data, install back on site, connect to email, internet, printer etc. Give the client the option, of I can sit here had do this and charge by the hr at $90hr or take it away and have it back in several days. Its not physical work but very time consuming and repetitive. Pick up 4 machines a day, thats a $1K day but also your evenings/weekends stuffed as well.

fearandloathing

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#1985361 29-Mar-2018 12:13

I had the same issue with an update.

I fixed with this script or one vary similar to it.

https://www.askvg.com/fix-windows-update-problems-using-automatic-reset-script/

attrib -h -r -s %windir%\system32\catroot2
attrib -h -r -s %windir%\system32\catroot2\*.*
net stop wuauserv
net stop CryptSvc
net stop BITS
ren %windir%\system32\catroot2 catroot2.old
ren %windir%\SoftwareDistribution sold.old
ren "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\application data\Microsoft\Network\downloader" downloader.old
net Start BITS
net start CryptSvc
net start wuauserv

Then restart your PC.

amiga500

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#1985405 29-Mar-2018 13:50

If MS put their most talented and able coders into the team that does updates they might just possibly fix all these issues. However, their priority is to bring out these 'creators updates' with new features that precious few actually want.

kiwifidget

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#1985452 29-Mar-2018 15:12

and to add insult to injury they are named after seasons that only apply to half the planet at the time.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

mrdodge

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#1985468 29-Mar-2018 15:49

frednz:

mrdodge:

robjg63:

Disclaimer The sample scripts are not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. The sample scripts are provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of the sample scripts and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the scripts be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample scripts or documentation, even if Microsoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

For sure - I have reviewed that script and used it twice - once it worked, another time no so much. It seems that there is a number of combinations of incorrectly starting services , corrupt files and general Windows f*ckery that can cause problems, not to mention buggy updates themselves. If you have an HP laptop you might see you mouse/keyboard or wireless stop working after an update. Sigh.

Resolving this is (at least for me), try to use Windows update troubleshooter first. when that fails then stop all services , clean out SoftwareDistribution and the BITS queue, reregister windows update components , restart. That script basically does that. Somewhere on the intertubes someone has gone through all the steps manually - can't quite find it at the moment.

Oh and you backup and create a restore point before doing any of this sort of work, right? :)

Thanks for your replies. I'm quite happy to run an "official" Microsoft Update repair program (which I did without success) but I'm not so sure about running the scripts listed in this thread, even though some people seem to have had success with them. If these scripts were also unsuccessful, I'm not sure of the commands needed to reverse them out of the system or whether they could actually do harm to the computer.

I might just wait for a while to see if Microsoft comes up with an "official" update which fixes the problem as it doesn't seem that my computer really is at risk if the latest updates are postponed for a while.

While I sympathise with the desire to have MS fix us this hot festering mess, its just not likely to happen, at least not in my life time.

When doing this for real life customers, you get limited support from MS and learning from experience from the Windows eco system is really quite important. I certainly review and test (as much as practicable) these sort of solutions before applying them to real machines, but the critical thing is to create a restore point and have valid backups. I should not have left out a critical step before messing around with windows update - is the machine healthy - HDD ok, Memory OK, system file check ok? Probably half the machines I see have some sort of fundamental issue and wupdate is a symptom, not a cause.

Cheers

ANglEAUT

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#1985470 29-Mar-2018 15:50

1101:

People fail to realise just how much time is involved . You cant risk half arsing it .

- backup ALL users data : some people have hundreds of Gigs of data to backup . Even when customer says dont need data, backup anyway (have had cust
say dont need anything saved/backed up , then come back with 'wheres my photos' , wheres my old email )
- backup email settings , extract the email passwords (can bet many users dont know it)
- backup FF saved passwords , FF & chrome bookmarks
- wipe & reload (the easy part)
- sort out Windows drivers : that can take some time . May find manufacturer (cough HP) hasnt a clue what driver for for the hardware
& have a multichoice of drivers to try for each hardware device :eg 4 differnet NIC drivers on the driver page, same with wifi etc etc
- start the Winupdate process . Wait. Restart , More winupdates. Wait restart , more win updates. Keep doing that till no more updates
- reload office : sort out activation issues .
- Sort out issues with pirated software or software loaded illegally on too many PC's (that happens too often) . Waste alot of time with this .
- install AV, Acrobat, Chrome etc etc
- copy back data
- resetup email, import old email . Sort out issues with POP3 wanting to redownload 5-10Gb of old emails (unfortunately , all too common)

so , thats a 1/2 hour job

To be honest, its usually a matter of how much is the customer willing to pay, rather than how much it should cost
I dont think anyone would be willing to pay $400 . It may be because the Tech would need to spend ALOT of time in the workshop to get through this , when they could be onsite\callout making some real money

The problem with most of these shops is that they charge you $400 and only install Windows. You'll be able to log in and see files in your 'My Documents' folder. Nothing else!

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

mrdodge

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#1985480 29-Mar-2018 16:05

richrdh18:

1101:

sbiddle:

$400 to reinstall Windows?!?!?!?!

People fail to realise just how much time is involved . You cant risk half arsing it .

- backup ALL users data : some people have hundreds of Gigs of data to backup . Even when customer says dont need data, backup anyway (have had cust
say dont need anything saved/backed up , then come back with 'wheres my photos' , wheres my old email )
- backup email settings , extract the email passwords (can bet many users dont know it)
- backup FF saved passwords , FF & chrome bookmarks
- wipe & reload (the easy part)
- sort out Windows drivers : that can take some time . May find manufacturer (cough HP) hasnt a clue what driver for for the hardware
& have a multichoice of drivers to try for each hardware device :eg 4 differnet NIC drivers on the driver page, same with wifi etc etc
- start the Winupdate process . Wait. Restart , More winupdates. Wait restart , more win updates. Keep doing that till no more updates
- reload office : sort out activation issues .
- Sort out issues with pirated software or software loaded illegally on too many PC's (that happens too often) . Waste alot of time with this .
- install AV, Acrobat, Chrome etc etc
- copy back data
- resetup email, import old email . Sort out issues with POP3 wanting to redownload 5-10Gb of old emails (unfortunately , all too common)

so , thats a 1/2 hour job

To be honest, its usually a matter of how much is the customer willing to pay, rather than how much it should cost
I dont think anyone would be willing to pay $400 . It may be because the Tech would need to spend ALOT of time in the workshop to get through this , when they could be onsite\callout making some real money

Once upon a time when I was in my own PC support business I would do a lot of this kind of work. Yes, more hours are involved than what one can charge for but you still had to make it worth your while.

I used to charge 2.5hrs approx $250 for a pick up and return, complete backup (acronis), complete re-install of OS, updates etc and data, install back on site, connect to email, internet, printer etc. Give the client the option, of I can sit here had do this and charge by the hr at $90hr or take it away and have it back in several days. Its not physical work but very time consuming and repetitive. Pick up 4 machines a day, thats a $1K day but also your evenings/weekends stuffed as well.

For those in the game - FABS autobackup pro is magic for this sort of work. Highly recommended. Likewise Snappy Driver Installer. Both save a huge amount of time and protect you from making silly mistakes ( though nothing seems to work reliably with HP machines, they are a real pain, but keep me in business). I would say that doing any sort of migration from PC to PC takes at least a day elapsed and at least 2 hours of chargeable time if you using correct tools - FABS, SDIO, offline windows updates & etc.

I would say $250 is the absolute minimum for a pick up and return, now a days. i would think $300-350 would be more like it. Its easy money until something goes wrong. I charge extra to install specific programs and configure as well, which tends to put a cap on the amount of work.

1101

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#1985483 29-Mar-2018 16:17

mrdodge:

While I sympathise with the desire to have MS fix us this hot festering mess, its just not likely to happen, at least not in my life time.

Truth is, for the vast majority , there isnt any major issue with Winupdates :except restarting & installing at the worst possible time.
MS cant test for every PC / hardware /software/ AV /config etc known to man.

Sure, major build updates can cause issues, but for most it all just works .

"At present, the latest installed update on my PC is KB4054517 which successfully installed on 13 December 2017 (OS Build 16299.125)."
What build ver are you on ? 1709 or earlier ?
From memory , the Jan (and Feb) update wouldnt install with certain AV unless some reg entries were present

If on anything previous to 1709. DOWNLOAD the full Win10 ISO & do an in place upgrade to 1709 from CD

If your laptop(or PC) has weird OEM partitioning , with up to 5 partitions, in a weird order , then yes expect issues .

Some updates just dont install on a few PC's. Thats just they way it is .
Usually just hide the update & wait till the next months updates . Honestly its not the end of the world.
Sometimes MS will fix the update & re-release it .

mrdodge

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#1985493 29-Mar-2018 16:40

1101:

mrdodge:

While I sympathise with the desire to have MS fix us this hot festering mess, its just not likely to happen, at least not in my life time.

Truth is, for the vast majority , there isnt any major issue with Winupdates :except restarting & installing at the worst possible time.
MS cant test for every PC / hardware /software/ AV /config etc known to man.

Sure, major build updates can cause issues, but for most it all just works .

"At present, the latest installed update on my PC is KB4054517 which successfully installed on 13 December 2017 (OS Build 16299.125)."
What build ver are you on ? 1709 or earlier ?
From memory , the Jan (and Feb) update wouldnt install with certain AV unless some reg entries were present

If on anything previous to 1709. DOWNLOAD the full Win10 ISO & do an in place upgrade to 1709 from CD

If your laptop(or PC) has weird OEM partitioning , with up to 5 partitions, in a weird order , then yes expect issues .

Some updates just dont install on a few PC's. Thats just they way it is .
Usually just hide the update & wait till the next months updates . Honestly its not the end of the world.
Sometimes MS will fix the update & re-release it .

The varying customer machines I see range from Windows 7 boxes (and yes, just did a W7 reinstall with 24hrs of W7 updates) to prepping new machines for sale. Thats where I reset the PC and apply my offline updates to speed things up.The machine that was brought in today spent 48 hours installing 1709 and customer found it unusably slow. I will let it grind away overnight - some machines are just slow.

You are kind of right when you say its not a big deal BUT most residential customers dont know if its their machine going wrong and it for sure happens at the wrong time for many people - having your only machine slow to a crawl at end of year can add oodles of stress to an already stressful time. Might not mean much to the machine, sure does for the user.

oh and MS removed the AV Reg key a little while ago. It would seem all the AV's stepped up and played nice when faced with destruction of their business :)

frednz

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#1985535 29-Mar-2018 17:28

1101:

mrdodge:

While I sympathise with the desire to have MS fix us this hot festering mess, its just not likely to happen, at least not in my life time.

Truth is, for the vast majority , there isnt any major issue with Winupdates :except restarting & installing at the worst possible time.
MS cant test for every PC / hardware /software/ AV /config etc known to man.

Sure, major build updates can cause issues, but for most it all just works .

"At present, the latest installed update on my PC is KB4054517 which successfully installed on 13 December 2017 (OS Build 16299.125)."
What build ver are you on ? 1709 or earlier ?
From memory , the Jan (and Feb) update wouldnt install with certain AV unless some reg entries were present

If on anything previous to 1709. DOWNLOAD the full Win10 ISO & do an in place upgrade to 1709 from CD

If your laptop(or PC) has weird OEM partitioning , with up to 5 partitions, in a weird order , then yes expect issues .

Some updates just dont install on a few PC's. Thats just they way it is .
Usually just hide the update & wait till the next months updates . Honestly its not the end of the world.
Sometimes MS will fix the update & re-release it .

The latest update to successfully install on my laptop is also KB4054517. Since then, there have been several new Windows 10 Version 1709 updates, none of which can be successfully installed on my machine. These include KB4056892, KB4088776, and now the latest update to fail is KB4089848.

I think it's about time somebody went to the TV program "Fair Go" and see if they can do anything to help!

kiwifidget

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#1985782 29-Mar-2018 22:41

Fair Go is not the program it used to be.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

jmh

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#1987222 2-Apr-2018 16:38

Yep, I have this problem too. Bought a mini PC with W10 in Jan, which has managed to install some updates, but not the ones mentioned. It downloads the updated version of W10 required every day and then fails to install. This has happened every day since January. I spoke to the tech where I bought it who said, wait and see if Microsoft comes up with anything, but I will try and return the product this week. I figure the product was not sold to me as fit for purpose since it can't download updates and, as it has the home version, you can't turn the update off.

Pretty fed up with it actually.

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