[SOLVED] Windows 10 fails to update

[MorCowbell]

Having Windows 10 I'm at v1709. Using the Win10 Update Assistant, I get prompted to update to 'v1809' (which the wizard claims to be the latest). Several times now, this has happened:

I begin the update process with all other apps closed. After about an hour of downloading, it goes into the "installation" mode, warning me that the machine may be restarted several times. During this process, it displays several progress icons (55%,45% 75%, etc.). After several restarts, toward the end of this process, it echoes the following message:

"Undoing changes made to your computer ..."

This last message does not look like a good one!

When it's finally "done", I restart the system via login, which brings me to my desktop. I immediately check 'vernum' and it echoes a window that indicates v.1709 !!!
The only thing stranger is that, upon checking independently, I see that the latest verson of Win10 is 1903, which is not indicated by the all-knowing Win10 Update Assistant.

Any ideas as to why this keeps happening??

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Click update now tab ^

 

[MorCowbell]

Thanks DarkLord. Is the link you provided somehow more reliable/successful that the onboard update assistant? Just curious ...

 

[MorCowbell]

Well, it's still a bust. I downloaded the update exe and, when clicked, it again launched the Update Assistant. Though this time, it indicated an update to v.1903 (vs. v.1809 from the onboard Update Assistant).

Beyond that, the behavior was the same:

* Checking compatibility ... (5-6 minutes)
* Getting your update ready (downloading ...
"Percent complete" echoed several times. On the last (3rd?) time, once it hits about 72%, it slows considerably. The remaining process (to 100%) takes 2 hours !!!

* Working on update (X% ...)
Then it echoes "Your PC will restart several times.

Then, mysteriously, it echoes:
"Undoing changes made to your computer ..."

Upon a forced restart, 'vernum' indicates that the OS remains at v.1709.

This is a brand new, high-powered machine. My my experience, the Win10 update experience is a miserable failure.

 

[isamuelson]

My system is 10 years old (AMD Phenom II X3 720 with 4th core unlocked) and any time a major WIndows 10 upgrade came, it wouldn't work. Some are saying it's due to the age of my hardware. The only way I've ever been able to get to the latest upgrade of Windows 10 is to do a complete clean install. That requires that I back up my data, reformat the had drive and install the latest edition on my machine.

I've turned the 4th core off, turn off hardware virtualization in the BIOS, uninstalled AV software rather than turning it off, etc and nothing has fixed my inability to apply a new Windows 10 Upgrade, either through their Upgrade tool or clearing out the old downloads for the upgrade and starting from fresh downloads. Only way I can make it work is to install the latest version on a new drive or complete wipe the old install and install from scratch.

I just installed 1903 on my new SSD, so we'll see how things go when the next upgrade comes along.

I'm almost to the point where I want to detach my old windows 10 hard drive (where the boot/recovery partition resides) and leave just the SSD hooked up and re-install from scratch so that the recovery/boot partition is created on the SSD.

The older recovery partition that I currently have dates back to XP/Vista/7 (never went to 8). So I wonder how much of that is the issue because I can't make any changes in MSCONFIG under the Boot tab. Keeps giving me an invalid handle error and reverts the changes back. I think it might be due to something I did back in Windows 7 when I turned off certain services and since upgrading to 10, it won't allow me to save any more.