[SOLVED] Windows 10 update problem (will try reinstalling Windows) ?

[AleksiDj52]

Hello everyone, first of all English is not my mother tongue so i hope you understand what i say. So, for some weeks now i've been getting this Windows Update error message "A current driver on your PC may be better than the driver we're trying to install. We'll keep trying to install." and i've literally done EVERYTHING and my last hope is reinstalling Windows 10 but keep everything (i have so much stuff and i cannot do a fresh install).

My current build of Windows 10 is the 20H2 and i wanna go to 21H1 (using Windows Update ofc) but everytime i do so i get the message above and it's literally been irritating and i can't even patch my system with the new vulnerability about something called print spooler or something like that which is annoying. Anyways, i got a Windows 10 iso file which it's build is on 21H1 and i thought maybe installing Windows on the same drive would update Windows to 21H1. So my question is, can i update Windows by installing it on the main drive where Windows already is? Meaning that if i restart right now, boot into my USB flash drive and do the normal procedure of installing Windows and install Windows 10 21H1 on the same drive that has the Windows 10 20H2, will that break the OS? Or will the installation go just fine and the Windows 10 20H2 version will become a "windows.old" folder? I apologize if i got you confused but i'm not that good at explaining things but any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[punkncat]

I haven't done this since Win 7 that I can recall, but you should be able to go into the list of updates it's trying to install, click the button and tell it to hide update.
Alternately, just tell it to go ahead with the install and then come back to installing the better driver later.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

can i update Windows by installing it on the main drive where Windows already is?

no, there is no option to just update files in place.

i've been getting this Windows Update error message

try uninstalling the last few updates or reverting to an earlier restore point before the issue(s) began.
then try going through the update process again.

 

[AleksiDj52]

I haven't done this since Win 7 that I can recall, but you should be able to go into the list of updates it's trying to install, click the button and tell it to hide update.
Alternately, just tell it to go ahead with the install and then come back to installing the better driver later.

Thanks for the reply but sorry i didn't understand what you said, could you please repeat what you said in simpler terms? Thanks!

 

[AleksiDj52]

no, there is no option to just update files in place.
try uninstalling the last few updates or reverting to an earlier restore point before the issue(s) began.
then try going through the update process again.

Aaa OK, i mean it would make sense to not be able to do that but ah well

The funny thing about uninstalling an update is that there are only 2 KB updates listed in the control panel and these 2 were installed on 20th of january of 2021 and there are no other updates there, only these 2.
Unfortunately i do not have any restore points on my computer nor i can go back to a previous build using the recovery method in the Windows 10 settings so i'm kinda stuck right here...

 

[punkncat]

Check this article and see if it helps. My apologies for the language barrier.

How do you disable specific updates using windows 10? - Microsoft Community

 

[AleksiDj52]

Check this article and see if it helps. My apologies for the language barrier.

How do you disable specific updates using windows 10? - Microsoft Community

No worries buddy, all good. Unfortunately i have already done what the article says and still no luck

I literally have no clue what has caused this to happen, i have tried manually updating Windows by downloading the specific KB update from Microsoft Update Catalog and nothing worked with that cuz it said that "this device is not applicable" or something like that but how is it not applicable when i literally searched on the Microsoft Update Catalog the exact thing that Windows Update was installing? Strange

Another thing i tried yesterday was updating my Windows to the build 21H1 using the Windows 10 Update Assistant and after waiting a full hour, it gave me an error displaying that "the installation failed" and that was a waste of an hour...

I could literally go on and on on what i have tried but i'm not gonna include them here

 

[punkncat]

Do you have any indication as to the specific device/driver the updater is having issue with?
Can you disable or uninstall it's current driver and let Auto Update use the one it's having the hang up about?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Unfortunately i do not have any restore points on my computer nor i can go back to a previous build using the recovery method in the Windows 10 settings so i'm kinda stuck right here...

if you haven't already, check in:
Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Backup and Restore > Security and Maintenance (bottom-left corner) > Recovery > Open System Restore
there should be auto-created Restore Points from every update and application installed for quite a while.

if not and if you have any important files stored on the same disk as Windows, and you haven't already, now could be a good time to start backing them up to another location.

then i'd use the MS Media Creation Tool to create an up-to-date USB Windows 10 installer package
and just do a fresh wipe & install to start over with.
this time if Windows for some reason isn't properly creating Restore Points you can do it yourself before each update or any major changes in the system.

 

[AleksiDj52]

Do you have any indication as to the specific device/driver the updater is having issue with?
Can you disable or uninstall it's current driver and let Auto Update use the one it's having the hang up about?

Nope, i don't think there is anything wrong with my drivers, even if i had one, i would've straight up uninstalled that driver and reinstalled but so far my drivers are as fine as they were from when i installed Windows 10 on this machine which was on november of 2018

 

[AleksiDj52]

if you haven't already, check in:
Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Backup and Restore > Security and Maintenance (bottom-left corner) > Recovery > Open System Restore
there should be auto-created Restore Points from every update and application installed for quite a while.

if not and if you have any important files stored on the same disk as Windows, and you haven't already, now could be a good time to start backing them up to another location.

then i'd use the MS Media Creation Tool to create an up-to-date USB Windows 10 installer package
and just do a fresh wipe & install to start over with.
this time if Windows for some reason isn't properly creating Restore Points you can do it yourself before each update or any major changes in the system.

I only see 2 restore points and they were very recent, the first one if from 6th of july and the second one is from 7th of july, literally few days ago so restoring to one of those restore points won't really do much since i have this issue for weeks now.

I already got an up to date ISO file which is the 21H1 build that i currently got on my desktop. But bro i cannot do a fresh install, i got like 500gb worth of stuff and doing a backup is gonna take an eternity. I know this may be my last resort but i cannot do it right now

I have an idea, what if i installed Windows 8.1 on my current machine then update my Windows to the latest version of Windows 10, will that do anything or is that basically the same thing as what i said about installing the same Windows on the same drive?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i got like 500gb worth of stuff

what if i installed Windows 8.1 on my current machine then update my Windows

you would be running into the exact same issue.
installing another version of Windows would still need to wipe the OS partition and create new system partitions.

you can move 500GB of data pretty easily.
even from HD to HD that's a pretty quick transfer.
are you just lacking the storage space?
is the data stored in OS libraries or do you have custom folders and\or partitions where you keep the files?

 

[AleksiDj52]

you would be running into the exact same issue.
installing another version of Windows would still need to wipe the OS partition and create new system partitions.

you can move 500GB of data pretty easily.
even from HD to HD that's a pretty quick transfer.
are you just lacking the storage space?
is the data stored in OS libraries or do you have custom folders and\or partitions where you keep the files?

I will try this on my vmware in a bit meaning that i will install a windows 10 20h2 build then after that i will install windows 10 21h1 on the same drive to see what happens, if anything happens

Naaah mate, 500gb may see quick for you but for me i still have my 10+ year old HDD as my storage drive and boy and boy that bad boy reaches like 50mb/s write speeds😂 and yeah i do lack the space and the data is stored on my SSD at the moment, everything is on my SSD, my videos recordings for YT and my vmwares is on my HDD, that's about it.

Well honestly i will do the vmware thingy to see what happens and i will let you know how that goes, it could go very unsuccessfully but hey ho, i will have tried at least

 

[AleksiDj52]

you would be running into the exact same issue.
installing another version of Windows would still need to wipe the OS partition and create new system partitions.

you can move 500GB of data pretty easily.
even from HD to HD that's a pretty quick transfer.
are you just lacking the storage space?
is the data stored in OS libraries or do you have custom folders and\or partitions where you keep the files?

Well, an update on the vmware thingy that i did. So, i installed Windows 20H2 on my vmware, after than i installed Windows 21H1 on the same drive where 20H2 was located and the result was that the Windows 20H2 became a windows.old folder inside the C drive and the main OS was the 21H1 meaning that i could grab whatever i wanted from the windows.old folder. I thought that installing the 21H1 build on the same drive would like replace Windows and the files being intact but idk how that would've worked lol so idk what to do

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

the result was that the Windows 20H2 became a windows.old folder

i don't even remember what exactly gets moved to the .old folder.
if it's got your User & ProgramData folders still located there than you should be able to at least copy\paste your settings and user files for applications, games, ect.
i don't believe it also moves your Program Files folders but ??.

 

[AleksiDj52]

i don't even remember what exactly gets moved to the .old folder.
if it's got your User & ProgramData folders still located there than you should be able to at least copy\paste your settings and user files for applications, games, ect.
i don't believe it also moves your Program Files folders but ??.

It basically moves over everything, your program files x86, program files, users, literally EVERYTHING as you can see from the link below from my vmware that i did yesterday and yes i can just copy/paste everything that i need but the issue is i have to reinstall everything in terms of software. I currently have 95 items installed on control panel and reinstalling those after installing a fresh new Windows is defo gonna be a hassle. I mean if i do that it's gonna take like 2 hours of work and that but it will be worth it, idk bud, i have done so much on this computer and getting it back to where it was that's gonna be a half day work, idk

Link:

https://imgur.com/a/w323Rea

View: https://imgur.com/a/w323Rea

 

[Colif]

You shouldn't need to touch windows.old after a version update, all of your data should all be accessible anyway. Usual operation windows.old will be removed 10 days after a version update. All the data in it should be in the new version already.

one way to fix problem would have been to just run the USB from inside windows and let it update that way but this seems to have done the same thing.

 

[AleksiDj52]

You shouldn't need to touch windows.old after a version update, all of your data should all be accessible anyway. Usual operation windows.old will be removed 10 days after a version update. All the data in it should be in the new version already.

one way to fix problem would have been to just run the USB from inside windows and let it update that way but this seems to have done the same thing.

Hello Colif, well no, you didn't actually read the VM part i think because you thought i did a simple update from Windows update, i did not do that, i installed the 20H2 build, restarted, booted into my "USB" with the 21H1 build in it and installed it that way and that was through my VM

I just checked and the files are not accessible as you say it, i have to move them from the windows.old folder to the new Windows because hear me out, before i did the update thingy on my VM, i installed a software called AOMEI Partition Assistant to merge partitions cuz i didn't put enough space and after i did the merge part, i went ahead and installed the 21H1 build on top of the 20H2 build and after all of that, as i write this i see that the AOMEI Partition software is not installed and the folder of that software is not in the Program Files (x86) folder whereas if i go to the windows.old folder, the software's folder is there so basically from what i have gathered and understood at this point is that installing a new build of Windows on top of the already installed Windows will put the previous build of Windows to a windows.old folder and the new build of Windows will take over and will be a fresh install without anything in it in terms of software and folders. So in other words what i did was a fresh install with all of the folders and files being in the windows.old folder