On 4/3/2024 10:32 PM, knuttle wrote:
Reset vs apply updates
A co volunteer at church, has a computer, that has not been updated since November. It has reached the point the computer is nearly unusable. You know the MS thing, you can continue to use it if you are able. I have been volunteered to fix it.
Personally I upgrade the software when the update comes out so have never had to work through this bad of situation.
The obvious solution is to apply each upgrade.
However if I Reset the the OS keeping the user data and programs, will it reinstall with all of the current updates?
(Wiping the disk or any method that destroys the data and programs, is unacceptable, as I have no idea of how much data is on the computer.)
On my Optiplex 780 (currently an E8400 Core2Duo processor),
the Win10 21H2 would install, but it could not be upgraded
to Win10 22H2. The reason, was the graphics in the chipset
were too old (Q45 Northbridge). Once I installed a HD6450
video card from the junk room, it would take version 22H2
just fine. The machine did not "lament" on the screen about
the graphics, it just silently rolled back and "gave me the finger".
I was forced to guess at why it was rolling back.
This is one of the reasons I would budget four hours for this
project. You have to plan for the unexpected.
When a person like yourself is offering to help someone, this
is your worst nightmare. Blindsided by something you weren't
expecting. A similar blindsiding occurs, when the hard drive
is sick, and the Upgrade kills it :-)
Any project starts with planning. That's looking
over the machine, to see if the process will be straight
forward, or it's going to be a chore.
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/mgH8L6ZQ/machine-details.gif
Using winver.exe, I would determine the existing version details.
For example, a build of 19045 tells me the machine has been
well maintained, and a Repair Install might not be needed.
Then, a Repair Install would be driven by symptoms (user
has malware perhaps).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_version_history
If the machine is several revisions behind (18363), then
it has not received patches for a while, and is out of support.
Whether you use a Win10 21H2 or a Win10 22H2 DVD, depends
on whether the graphics drivers have poor support (like
my Optiplex 780 and its *XDDM* driver). On a laptop,
typically the graphics do not unplug, so you can't fix
stale hardware in that case. And then your tool of
choice might be the Win10 21H2 DVD.
If you go from 18363 to 19044 or from 18363 to 19045,
you will suddenly receive Patches to go with your
Repair install. That is why you're trying to get it
to 19045, so it will be brought back into support
and the machine will get Patch Tuesday again.
If the machine will only accept 19044, that's like
Last Rites time, as 19044 has stopped receiving Updates.
But, it's the best you can do for a laptop in that
situation (old graphics).
To Repair install, boot the machine, insert the DVD,
run Setup.exe off the Win10 installer DVD.
There should be sufficient space on C: for the
C:\Windows.old folder and it will contain at least
20GB of stuff. The machine will silently do things,
to deal with a shortage of disk space, and again,
you'd need to know some details about how easy
it would be to make room, to do the best job of
the install. Since it's a laptop, you can't really
afford to turn off Hibernation like I can do on a
Desktop machine. An installer could "ask for 85GB"
for example, and then you have to decide how to
handle that request.
There are other things you can do to help the machine,
such as deleting the contents of LCU, then doing a
defragmentation, but that depends on how much time
you have to spare.
When you install 22H2 as a Repair install, the machine
will install more than one Cumulative. Don't forget to
reboot the machine when the machine asks, as it may
have more updates pending in Windows Update when it
comes back up. It's like flushing a broken toilet...
reboot reboot reboot :-) After all the WU ceremony is
finished, you can start with your cleanup activity.
But don't be surprised if this takes four hours.
If the machine has a hard drive, that's part of the
speed issue. If it has a lot of installed programs,
the Migration phase could take one hour.
Paul
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