Setup Couldn't Start Properly. Please Reboot Your PC

[gb777]

Been upgrading Windows 8.1 laptops to Windows 10. Have 1 that won't begin the update process. Get the "Setup couldn't start properly. Please reboot your pc and try running Windows 10 setup again." This is a well known problem but most of the discussions were back mid 2015. The common solution is to delete $windows.~bt, $windows.~ws & windows.old folders as sell as the media creation tool. This doesn't help this pc. The laptop is a home user with Win 8.1 std.

I've been upgrading from an ISO image burned on a disk or the file mounted directly. I've also tried the Windows 10 upgrade assistant. I get the same message using either method. When using the upgrade assistant, it downloads files then fails with the message above, when I close it I get another message 0x80070005. Don't get that message when using the iso image. I've got a ton of hours and reboots trying to get Win10 to install on this HP laptop.

Here's what I've tried:
used the 1511 iso image downloaded thru the media creation tool
used the image ESD-ISO "for other pc's" downloaded thru the media creation tool
install in safe mode
delete $windows.~bt, $windows.~ws (only appears with upgrade assistant), haven't gone far enough to get the windows.old. I do get a windows10update folder and I've deleted that as well.
Tried logging in with a different admin user.
No outstanding windows updates

Any other ideas or anyone else have this problem and solution?

Thanks

 

[smorizio]

could be damaged files or a virus. what i would do is back up personal data to a ext hard drive and see if i can run the factory restore from the hidden partion on that hard drive. once the pc was back to factory fresh i would try the windows 10 update.

 

[gb777]

could be damaged files or a virus. what i would do is back up personal data to a ext hard drive and see if i can run the factory restore from the hidden partion on that hard drive. once the pc was back to factory fresh i would try the windows 10 update.

Thanks for the idea but not an option. The laptop was originally Windows 8.0 and going back to that then upgrading to 8.1 (if Msoft allows it) then several hundreds of updates is more time than I can spend on it.

 

[smorizio]

one thing turn off windows update service and clean out the windows update folder. run ccleaner remove any temp files. run malware bytes and hitman pro make sure thee no virus. reboot and uninstall any anti virus programs that are running then reboot then try to update. sometime anti virus programs are known to lock up windows 10 updates.

 

[gb777]

one thing turn off windows update service and clean out the windows update folder. run ccleaner remove any temp files. run malware bytes and hitman pro make sure thee no virus. reboot and uninstall any anti virus programs that are running then reboot then try to update. sometime anti virus programs are known to lock up windows 10 updates.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I tried the following, each separately and no difference:
turn off virus protection
ran full virus scan
disk cleanup
turn off update services
checked DCOM permissons
tried different admin account

 

[gb777]

FIXED!!!

With the little time left for the Free Windows 10 Upgrade thought I'd post the fix if someone else runs into this.

I ran Tweaking.com Windows Repair. It's free. I don't like running registry cleaners or fixers. I've been a computer pro going back to the 80's and I saw people run these tools and wipe out their computers.

I ran a complete system backup that created a disk image to a remote hard drive. I then ran Tweaking.com Windows Repair. First did the 2 optional steps that did chkdsk & system file scan. Don't believe that's what actually fixed things. I then ran the repair. It took quite a while to run and it did a lot of stuff including permissons, registry fixes etc. There were 43 steps it did. Some things said it couldn't do & one step #39 stopped running but the instructions for that step said to close the command window and continue.

When done I rebooted and it took a while to shutdown and restart, just like if you did a windows update. I tried the ISO image ESD-ISO and it ran to completion.

Before running Tweaking.com Windows Repair I did a restore point in Windows 8.1. Verified it was there. Tweaking.com windows repair also did a backup. When I was done upgrading to Windows 10, I checked the system restore point I created and Windows Restore was turned off and the restore point I created was gone along with all other ones. That's why I do my own external backups. Can't always depend on Windows Restore. Sometimes it helps you out but not always.

DONE!! Hope this helps someone else.