Solved Lots of Problems after Refresh - what is the best solution

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

I was getting a lot of glitches, hanging programs and needing to force a power down, so I decided to refresh (possibly the second-worst decision I've made recently), which took me back from W8.1 to W8.

This went okay, and I went to the store to update to W8.1 again, and found I had to install all the updates for W8 first, so went to do this. There were 118 updates, plus one optional. I downloaded the 118 and clicked to install them (having read another thread I now realize that trying to install so many updates at once is not a good idea, but hindsight is a wonderful thing).

At first I got into a loop where it appeared to be configuring updates, then said it had failed to configure them and wad reverting, then restarted, then appeared to be configuring etc.

After about 4 hours the loop finally worked through and I switched off and left everything else until the following day, at which point I found that only about 10 updates had successfully installed, so I again checked for updates and selected to install just 10 (from the bottom of the list). Installing these 10 automatically triggered more to reinstall and I was left with just 16 to deal with in a final install (rebooting in between each batch).

I then went to uninstall some unwanted programs including McAfee (I had already installed my preferred malware program) and after this had to restart, when I got stuck on the 'restarting' screen for at least a half hour. In the end I opted to power down the machine.

When I switched back on again I still got the 'restarting' screen and it took another power down before I was able to log on again.

So then I made what could be the worst recent decision and decided to do another refresh, as it seemed that I had already got glitches happening.

Again the refresh itself went okay. I installed my preferred malware then uninstalled Mcafee without any problem. I did a couple of Dell related things that came up automatically and would not go away until I had dealt with them.

Then I went to Windows Update. The screen indicated that I needed to restart to complete installing updates, but as far as I could see there weren't any updates yet, so I didn't do this but went to check for updates. Part-way through the check I got a message to say Windows Update needed to update itself and clicked to install this update.

The message said Windows Update would close and re-open. Closing was immediate, re-opening took maybe the best part of an hour, with no indication of whether anything was happening. Once the program was open again I clicked to view installed updates, of which there are 28 (installed before I bought the laptop). I then clicked to go back to check for updates and just got a blank window.

In Task Manager I could see that disk usage was mostly above 95% at this time. 2 programs were at the top of the list for usage:

Windows System Reset Platform Operating System Updates and System. For the latter, the details were: NT Kernel and System, ntoskml.exe.

After some time Windows System Reset ... closed down and disk usage was then very low, but I still had a blank window in Windows Update. I eventually gave up and switched off the laptop (using settings/shutdown, which worked fine), and this is where things currently are.

Since the second refresh things have been generally slow to load, and disk usage generally high despite very little actually being done on the laptop.

So my question is: what should I do now? I feel my current install is not satisfactory so should I try another refresh (third time lucky ) or should I try a different option. I have a Dell recovery usb and a Windows recovery usb available, plus a recent System Image. I'm not keen to try the latter as the point was to renew my system files, but this could maybe get me back to where I was before I started trying to make things better.

 

[popeye]

Sounds like you've been through the wringer. I would backup what files you don't want to lose and do a recovery. Would probably wipe the drive first also. Maybe others will have a different opinion.

Installing all the updates can be a pain. Often have to do in blocks of 5 or so and see what takes then move on to next 5 then go back and do the ones that wouldn't take at first. Not fun for sure.

Once you get things running the way you want take a look at the Custom Refresh tutorial.

 

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

I would backup what files you don't want to lose and do a recovery. Would probably wipe the drive first also.

Thanks @popeye. Fortunately I copied everything before I did the first refresh, so if I do go the recovery route it will not be too much more work than a refresh, just setting up accounts again and copying things over (or have I missed something significant from that list??).

Are you suggesting I use the Recovery option within Windows, or manually wipe the drive then presumably use a usb to reinstall?

I will be interested first to see if anyone would recommend another refresh attempt.

Once you get things running the way you want take a look at the Custom Refresh tutorial.

That was the original plan for after the refresh. Maybe one day

 

[popeye]

I was talking about the USB recovery you made when you first got the computer. And thinking wiping the drive would be the best way to ensure everything will be clean when you recover.

 

[topgundcp]

Having any kind of Anti Virus software running while performing Windows Updates, Installing third party software is just asking for trouble. So often the Anti Virus will produce false positive results and disrupt Windows from doing its things.

How did you uninstall McAfee ? Did you use their special Uninstaller or just used the Windows Uninstaller ?

Having said that, the best way to install Windows 8.1 is always from Windows 8.1 ISO disk directly but I guess you don't have the media to do that.

With DELL OEM. After you reset Windows back to the factory, you first need to clean up all the bloatware that they have installed such as trial software, games, McAfee etc... Run Disk cleanup, CCleaner to clean up all the orphan entries in the registry. In addition, to ensure nothing interferes with Updates, Run Msconfig and disable all non Microsoft services, reboot then run Windows Updates.

Having up to 95% disk space used also brings the PC down to its knee so I would do what Popeye suggested above ie. reformat the drive and reset the PC back to its original state.

 

[play2mefish]

Try downloading a Windows 8.1 iso file using this tip: http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/33164-how-download-windows-8-1-iso.html

It might be faster than doing all the updates and just might resolve the problem that you're experiencing in the first place. Providing of course you have another PC to do the download from...

 

[David Bailey]

Once you get everything working good, you might consider using something like Macrium Reflect to image your system on a usb drive.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

The paid Standard version has a boot time menu option that makes it easy to use your usb drive.
If you choose it the usb should be formatted as NTFS to get 1 big image file.
If you format it as Fat or Fat 32 you will end up with a bunch of 4 GB files.
Which is clumsy.
Also use High compression.

Just a suggestion.

edit---added pictures---

 

[topgundcp]

@David,
The boot menu option is not available in Free Version. You have the paid version.

 

[David Bailey]

@David,
The boot menu option is not available in Free Version. You have the paid version.

I pointed that out in my post---

The paid Standard version has a boot time menu option that makes it easy to use your usb drive.

 

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

Thank you for all your contributions. I'm going to try to respond (and ask all questions) in one post.

@play2mefish: unfortunately I can't download a Windows 8.1 ISO file as I have an OEM install of Windows 8 (unless things have changed since I researched this option before). So I'm stuck with getting W8 up and running then lots of updating

@David: I did have Macrium Reflect free on my laptop before I refreshed it, and some time ago you suggested the boot menu option to me (which was shown on the free edition, though maybe only until clicked??). Anyway, I didn't do it at the time, and, despite thinking about it as recently as a few days ago, I still didn't try this . Though it sounds like it may not have worked anyway, if it's a paid feature.

I do have Macrium on a usb and have a System Image created a couple of months ago. But glitches had appeared with the laptop before this was made, so even though I could use this I suspect it would not solve all my problems.

I had already been using the laptop for some time when I got into 3rd party back-up software, so didn't really use Macrium as effectively as I could have. But I do try to learn from my mistakes .

@topgundcp: I note what you say about antivirus programs interfering with other things, but can honestly say that this hasn't been a problem for me previously. I occasionally get warnings that a program is trying to modify something but am able to okay this. And Windows updates have never been an issue. HOWEVER I recently upgraded to an enhanced version of the antivirus and, despite no problems in the past, I will bear your advice in mind.

I uninstalled Mcafee from Programs and Features which brought up a Mcafee uninstaller (I assume since it tried to get me to activate the trial version instead of uninstalling). This took a little while but went through okay, prompting a restart after it finished.

Moving forward:

I have some queries about the process, which may seem basic and obvious to you people, but for me this is completely uncharted territory so please bear with me. I've highlighted specific questions in red so they don't get lost, but please comment on my statements as well if I seem to have misunderstood something:

When I switched on today I got a message saying Windows Update has an error so something has to be done.

It seems that no-one is advocating another refresh, so a recovery or factory reset would be the next step. As the factory reset usb was created when I first got the laptop, this seems like the best option (no time for glitches to have gotten in).

@topgundcp and @popeye are both suggesting that I reformat the drive first, which makes sense in terms of being the only way to be sure I have a clean set of files. How exactly do I do this though?

Once I have reformatted, I presumably have a clean and empty C drive and no OS?

Then I assume I boot into the bios to enable me to load the factory reset from the usb (and not from the recovery partition on the hard drive - or will this also be wiped in the reformat?) and just follow the instructions?

Once this is done @topgundcp recommends (in this order?):

clean up all the bloatware that DELL have installed such as trial software, games, McAfee etc...

Run Disk cleanup,

Install and run CCleaner to clean up all the orphan entries in the registry.

In addition, to ensure nothing interferes with Updates, Run Msconfig and disable all non Microsoft services (do I open an elevated command to run Msconfig? Will it be obvious how to disable all non Microsoft services?),

reboot then run Windows Updates.

At this stage I won't have any antivirus on the laptop unless I reinstall my own. Is it better to get Windows update finished before installing this or should I install but disable it?


Is there anything I've missed above?

and finally...

What if it goes wrong (not that I'm a pessimist or anything )

Edit: I've just been reading a post that mentioned a Windows Repair tool. Would that be something to try before I go through a disk reformat and factory reset?

 

[topgundcp]

@David,
I pointed that out in my post---

The paid Standard version has a boot time menu option that makes it easy to use your usb drive.

Sorry, My bad, I did not read the whole post. However, it is very easy to set up dual boot with Free Macrium. I posted in W10 Forum.
I'll repost again here:

With the paid version of Macrium. There is an option that allows you to create a dual boot environment with Macrium Recue disk. However, with the free version, this option is not available.

The advantage to dual boot with Macrium Rescue disk are as follows:

1. If you own an old PC which does not have the Boot Menu available. You don't need to change the Boot Priority in the BIOS to boot from the Macrium Rescue disk (CD/USB)
2. Save yourself a CD/USB for other use.
3. Boot faster from the SSD/HD.
4. Start up repair if your PC becomes unbootable.
5. Macrium rescue disk does have its own "File Explorer" version so you can recover data using drag and drop from unbootable Windows partition.

Here's how:

1. Create a folder called macrium under C: drive
2. Copy everything from the Macrium Rescue disk to this folder (C:\macrium)
3. Create a BAT file as shown below. You can use copy/paste to create a BAT file and save it as .bat extension.
   

   @echo off
   echo Configuring Dual boot Macrium Recovery Environment
   
   bcdedit.exe /CREATE {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk Options"
   bcdedit.exe /SET {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=C:
   bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \macrium\boot\boot.sdi
   
   for /f "tokens=2 delims={}" %%g in ('bcdedit.exe /create /d "Macrium Recovery" /application osloader') do (set guid={%%g})
   echo GUID = %guid% created !!!
   
   bcdedit /set %guid% device ramdisk=[c:]\macrium\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
   bcdedit /set %guid% osdevice ramdisk=[c:]\macrium\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
   bcdedit.exe /SET %guid% systemroot \windows
   REM use the next line for UEFI style installation
   [COLOR=#b22222]bcdedit /set %guid% path \Windows\system32\winload.efi[/COLOR][COLOR=#b22222]
   [/COLOR]REM For MBR, use the next line[COLOR=#b22222]
   bcdedit.exe /SET %guid% path \Windows\system32\winload.exe[/COLOR]
   
   bcdedit.exe /SET %guid% winpe yes
   bcdedit.exe /SET %guid% detecthal yes
   bcdedit.exe /SET %guid% nx OptIn
   
   bcdedit /displayorder %guid% /addlast
   bcdedit /timeout 5
   
   echo "Done... Reboot your PC"
   pause

   NOTE: there's are 2 red lines in the code, one for the MBR type installation and the other for UEFI. Use only one line that applies to your Windows Installation type MBR/UEFI and remove the other.
4. Save the current BCD: Open Admin command prompt and type: bcdedit /export myBCD
   and save this myBCD file to somewhere else.
5. Right click on the BAT file and run as Admin
6. Reboot. You should see the dual boot menu with the timeout set to 5.

To remove the dual boot environment:

1. Open the Admin command prompt and type: bcdedit /import myBCD
2. Delete the folder C:\macrium.

 

[topgundcp]

I uninstalled Mcafee from Programs and Features which brought up a Mcafee uninstaller (I assume since it tried to get me to activate the trial version instead of uninstalling). This took a little while but went through okay, prompting a restart after it finished.

Uninstall Anti Virus software from Programs and Features will not uninstall correctly. Most Anti Virus require you to use their special uninstaller to remove all the traces from your system.

I note what you say about antivirus programs interfering with other things, but can honestly say that this hasn't been a problem for me previously. I occasionally get warnings that a program is trying to modify something but am able to okay this. And Windows updates have never been an issue

You are assuming that it did not give you any problem but you also don't know if the software installed correctly. Most third party software always give a Warning: Turn off your Anti Virus first before installation, specially the third party device drivers, which sometimes being updated by Windows Updates.

@topgundcp and @popeye are both suggesting that I reformat the drive first, which makes sense in terms of being the only way to be sure I have a clean set of files.

Actually when you reset your PC, it will also wipe out the C: Drive and re-install Windows, so you don't really need to reformat it. Just reset then clean up before running Windows Updates.

 

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

Thanks to everyone who contributed advice and suggestions.

While I was typing my last post above Windows update seemed to sort itself out and re-downloaded the 118 updates. So I thought I would have a go at installing them (first turning off all non-Microsoft services through msconfig). I tried to just install 10 updates from the list, just selecting the earliest in date order, but once these were installed and I clicked to restart, the remaining ones were automatically installed, leading to the same configure/failing to configure loop as before.

So I just waited until it finally resolved itself and kept trying to install just a few updates at a time, letting it loop around, until it finally finished installing everything.

Is there a way to successfully install just selected (ticked) updates from a list? I thought if I just selected a few, this is all that would be dealt with, but each time, others were automatically installed as well. E.g. I chose 10 Security updates but all the other security updates were also installed, despite not being ticked.

Anyway, this eventually got me to a successful install of W8 after which I did some cleaning up then downloaded W8.1 and installed it.

The odd minor hiccup but as far as I can tell it's okay, so I'm hoping I've gotten rid of the bad blocks etc. and other things that were causing frustration.

@topgundcp thank you for the information about setting up a dual boot with Macrium. I'm not sure I fully understand this but will have a closer look soon.

 

[David Bailey]

Is there a way to successfully install just selected (ticked) updates from a list? I thought if I just selected a few, this is all that would be dealt with, but each time, others were automatically installed as well. E.g. I chose 10 Security updates but all the other security updates were also installed, despite not being ticked.

I do think you must "hide" the updates to avoid having all of them install.

If you want to install 5 at a time, hide the rest.

When those 5 get installed, unhide 5 more, etc. until all are installed.

A picture---



edit---

 

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

Is there a way to successfully install just selected (ticked) updates from a list? I thought if I just selected a few, this is all that would be dealt with, but each time, others were automatically installed as well. E.g. I chose 10 Security updates but all the other security updates were also installed, despite not being ticked.

I do think you must "hide" the updates to avoid having all of them install.

If you want to install 5 at a time, hide the rest.

When those 5 get installed, unhide 5 more, etc. until all are installed

Thanks David, hiding updates never occurred to me. Foolish of me to assume that NOT selecting them would work really

 

[David Bailey]

Glad I could help.

 

[topgundcp]

Is there a way to successfully install just selected (ticked) updates from a list? I thought if I just selected a few, this is all that would be dealt with, but each time, others were automatically installed as well. E.g. I chose 10 Security updates but all the other security updates were also installed, despite not being ticked.

I do think you must "hide" the updates to avoid having all of them install.

If you want to install 5 at a time, hide the rest.

When those 5 get installed, unhide 5 more, etc. until all are installed

Thanks David, hiding updates never occurred to me. Foolish of me to assume that NOT selecting them would work really

IMHO, hiding updates are the same as if you uncheck them. However, When you select updates from the list, certain updates have to happen before the updates you selected can be applied, so sometimes you'll see some extra updates not being selected also run.

All these years using different versions of Windows, I have never had to install updates 5 at a time, I always select them all and have never failed. That would tell me either you have slow/flaky internet connection that would cause the updates corruption or the updates are not successful due to interference from third party software running in the background, specially Anti Virus.

 

[SaggyMaggyPoo]

IMHO, hiding updates are the same as if you uncheck them. However, When you select updates from the list, certain updates have to happen before the updates you selected can be applied, so sometimes you'll see some extra updates not being selected also run.

All these years using different versions of Windows, I have never had to install updates 5 at a time, I always select them all and have never failed. That would tell me either you have slow/flaky internet connection that would cause the updates corruption or the updates are not successful due to interference from third party software running in the background, specially Anti Virus.

A couple of people who responded to my problem mentioned doing updates in batches, which suggested that there was some way to achieve this. Actually, when I chose updates all of one kind (e.g. all security related or all .NET related) I was able to just install that type of update (though more than I had selected: on one occasion I selected 10 updates and 53 were installed).

My internet connection isn't mega-fast but it is generally okay. (I downloaded W8 and W8.1, each over several hours without any connection problems for example). And it's the best I'm going to get, unless I move house.

Anyway, I only needed to install lots of updates because I had refreshed back to W8. I'm about to make a Custom Recovery Image so I'm hoping I will never need to go through this again .