Has a Windows 10 Anniversary update left you without an Operating System?
byMark Townsend
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22 Mar, 2018
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Windows 10 stuck in Startup Repair Loop
Over the last three months 20% of my calls have been as a result of Windows 10 destroying itself during one of Microsoft's anniversary updates. This is quite a worrying statistic although of course my experience might not be representative of the picture as a whole.
I will begin by explaining what the Anniversary update is as it differs from the way that Microsoft have updated previous Operating Systems. Previously Microsoft issued regular monthly patches and from time to time they would issue a Service Pack which was a collection of updates designed to make the updating process faster for out of date systems. When they launched Windows 10 they still issued the regular monthly updates but once a year they issued an Anniversary update. The difference here is that it is a major update, in fact a complete reinstall of your Operating System. Therefore once the process kicks off things are out of your control and you are left praying that the process completes successfully and you end up with a Computer with the latest version of Windows 10 on. The name Anniversary update is also not very appropriate now as they issue two a year. The latest being version 1709 the Fall Creators Update, the previous version was 1703. The numbers actually indicate the release date which therefore was March 2017 and September 2017. Another thing to be aware of is that due to the size of these updates (you have to download a full Operating System which can be as much as 6 - 8 GB) Microsoft phase the roll out so you may get the update three or four months after it is released. That is the reason people are having issues now with an update that was released last September.
When I arrive to look at a Computer the typical scenario is that it is in a startup repair loop. This means it goes round and round trying to repair itself and never succeeds. My job is to break it out of the loop and attempt some recovery processes which rarely succeed. By default on a new build of Windows 10 it does not save recovery points so when you attempt to recover there is nothing to recover from. If you have upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1 you should be okay but if you have bought a Computer that started out life as a Windows 10 machine recovery by default will almost certainly be off. If you want to check this and turn it on then contact me and I'll explain how to do it, but please bear in mind it does use quite a bit of disk space so if you're already low on disk space it will cause you a problem. After trying various recovery techniques I often have to resort to a clean build of Windows 10. The good news is that I can save all of the customers data but the bad news is that all the programs will be gone and will need to be reinstalled. This is fine if you have all the discs or downloads but bad news if you "borrowed" some software from a friend and don't have the discs. It is also bad news for those that struggle to remember their passwords as I will need all of them to make your Computer look anything like it did before.
The question most of you will be asking now is how can I tell if my update is likely to go wrong and what can I do to prevent it? Based on what I have discovered so far the issues seem to occur where people have poor broadband connectivity and low bandwidth. Whether there is some sort of issue with the download that Windows is working from I don't know. The next most obvious sign is seeing the message that says Windows has failed to update and is reverting to a previous installation. If you see this message more than once you should be afraid!! The customers I have spoken to have seen this a number of times only to find that one day it cannot revert and they are left with nothing. Basically it will keep trying and failing and your best bet is to backup your data now and contact a Computer expert while you still have an Operating System as they should be able to manually apply the update to save you from disaster.
The next question you might want to ask is what does Mark from Churchdown Computers do to protect himself? At this point I will quote my favourite phrase which is "I know I'm paranoid but am I paranoid enough?". If you look at the picture above you will see a clue. I have purchased disk cloning device and before a major update I take a copy of my entire hard disk. You can buy a new disk for less than £40 and take a copy of your current disk. Once you have done this all you need to do is concentrate on backing up your data. If the worst happens to me I will simply put the cloned disk into my machine, update the data from my backup and I'm fully running again in minutes. No need for a rebuild of the Operating System and no need to reinstall all my programs. The cloned disk also covers me for three other things. Firstly it acts as a full backup as at that date and time, secondly if my hard drive ever fails I'm up and running again in minutes and thirdly if ever I get attacked by a ransomware virus and all my files are encrypted once again I'm up and running in minutes. If you are interested in disk cloning just give me a call on 07557 483438 or e-mail mark@churchdowncomputers.co.uk. You can also fill out the form on the Contact page.
Finally for those who are reading this but aren't a member of the Churchdown Computers Facebook group you may want to consider joining up as there are a few benefits. Members of the Group will see my latest Blogs which will either comprise of Hints and Tips or news stories on Computer related subjects. However, there are two major benefits on top of this. Firstly you will be able to raise questions that you would like answered and secondly if you join the group during March you will be granted access to the FREE telephone support line which covers minor faults that don't require a home visit. This service is normally only available to existing customers. A link to the group is below:
