Windows 10 upgrade woes include deleted apps, system hangs

[RV_]

I had heard about the big upgrade called threshold 2 and several folks here talked about hours downloading and installing. That upgrade (not update, as it is an entire new version, 1511, Windows 10) was indeed ~3GB and took an hour or three on my systems here with a 75Mbs fast cable connection. That was Monday night for me, with three of my 7 systems upgrading. (Only three are Windows 10, the rest Windows 8.1, and one older laptop with 7.

 

The issues people are having I wish I'd known, as one that slowed it down and caused hangs was having an SD card installed. I had SD cards in two of the systems and they did hang at 44% for quite awhile. They did finally get done but it would have been easy had I known to unmount and eject the SD cards first. Had I been on a metered connection with bandwidth limits I would have been concerned.

 

If you have not gotten this upgrade yet you need this info to make it faster and smooth going.

 

It also deletes several apps and programs. The link to the list is in the full article.

 

If you are traveling and just upgraded to Windows 10 or have the settings set to defer updates you might want to read the MS FAQs here all the way through for how to get it almost on demand when you have a fast connection: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/windows-update-faq

 

Infoworld posted an excellent article with more links and info to make this a smooth ride for those yet to do it.

 

Excerpt:

 

"The rollout of Windows 10 version 1511 has hit a few bumps, but we have solutions.

 

Realize that the v 1511 upgrade is not a cumulative update: Microsoft downloads about 3GB of files, and the installation can take 30 minutes or more.

 

Of course, freeing up 20GB (the estimated install space) on a small device could be something of a challenge.

 

There's a thread on Reddit that describes how many software products are removed when upgrading to v 1511. Among the programs mentioned: CPU-Z, speccy, 8gadgetpack, a Cisco VPN client, SATA drivers, SpyBot, RSAT, the F5 VPN, and HWMonitor. Apparently moving from Win10 RTM to v 1511 is similar to upgrading from Win7 or Win8.1 to v 1511, except there's no advanced scan to warn you what will be removed. Fortunately, there's a list of removed apps that appears in the notification center when you boot."

 

More and the links to the Reddit article and other resources for this upgrade can be found in the full article here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3005044/microsoft-windows/windows-10-upgrade-woes-include-deleted-apps-system-hangs.html?phint=newt%3Dinfoworld_tech_microsoft&phint=idg_eid%3D6aa01e18b29f7b6f9149f611f8eac228#tk.IFWNLE_nlt_entwindows_2015-11-18

[Jack Mayer]

So how do you stop it.....

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

I remotely upgraded 4 PCs from Windows Build 10240 to Build 10586. It was almost like a new install.

 

The only application change that was apparent is that we use a Windows Server 2012 Essentials connector for the PC to be on the domain. That connector was missing after the upgrade.

 

A reinstall of the connector and things were back again.

 

My own PCs have not gone through the upgrade yet so it wasn't a roll-out to everyone at once.

[John Laninga]

I was traveling in Europe when I got messages that my Lenovo Yoga running 8.1 wanted to update. Since I was at my sisters, with high speed internet, I decided to gamble and update to Win 10. Never did care much for Win 8.1. I started the process, answered whatever questions they had, and let it all run overnight. Next morning I was running Win 10 no problems.

 

If I lost anything, I am not aware of it. I like the interface much better. None of my software programs that I had installed stopped working, although I did have a few updates. And I run some fairly complex photographic software. In fact, it seemed to run somewhat faster on W10 than W8.1.

 

So for me, the update worked easily, no problems, and I am happy with the new interface. I check regularly for any updates and to date I have not had any additional updates. Hope I'm not missing anything...

 

== John

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

Mine upgraded to Threshhold 2 this morning. On the first reboot I got a system hang, but not since. Also, my FN key combinations stopped working (as they did on the original Windows 10 install). I let the Asus Windows update run a repair and they started working again.

[KodiakJack]

So can these deleted apps (software programs) be reloaded? I ask this because of my plan to load Spybot Anti-beacon sometime after the smoke clears to stop MS so-called telemetry transfers of data from my computers.

Later,

J

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

One of my local PCs finally went to the upgrade. The download wasn't too bad but the install runs a real long time. The PC rebooted a couple of times while doing the install. The first log in also took a very long time.

 

But nothing is missing as I can tell so far.

[Bill Joyce]

I had to re-install the unsigned driver for my Silverleaf VMSpc, but otherwise no issues. The update/upgrade did take a long time. Used about 2GB, so best to do on an unlimited internet system.

[RV_]

Jack,

Other than what was on the MS FAQ link I gave above, beats me. It gave me a choice to schedule a time, or do it now, and I just closed the dialog box and it waited until I tapped the Windows upgrade icon or Windows updates.

 

Jack,

From what I've read both Apps and drivers work after an uninstall/reinstall.

[Biker56]

It also installs some new apps that start using data right away. I had to shut the tiles off or uninstalled many of them. As I don't use any of the apps.

With my slow 1.3Mbs it took me over 3 days to install and I had to shut my Internet connection off many times before I ran out of my daily 425 MB limit.

I only woke up one morning at 3:30AM to use 3 1/2 hours of my free time.

Other wise I may have been able to do it in 2 nights of free time.

 

I took my laptop to a friends with 50-75Mbs to update it. Much faster download. Around 1 hour download not counting the install time I did after getting back home.

 

I hate it that it doesn't give how many MB download is, like the old W7 did and not let you pick how much of it to download and spread it out over time & data use.

[StarDreamers.us]

Up grade was long and it caused several of my programs to stop or they just disappeared. Took about a day to clear up some of the boot problems. Windows Defender just went blank? Almost wish I had left old version running NO upgrade.

 

Safe Travels!

[RV_]

Yesterday I found a cumulative update (when I checked for updates to the upgrade) to the new version along with an update to Flash. Downloaded and installed both and no issues.

 

Apparently they rushed out some fixes for the new threshold 2 upgrade. I had some issues that were resolved by an additional restart. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with Windows 10. My wife, who is barely computer capable. She is like the regurgitators in college. They rote memorized, tested, got an A, did a mind flush and never understood the things they regurgitated. She memorizes steps. She is all Windows 10 except her phone. Her HP desktop is Windows 10, her Dell Venue 11 pro is Windows 10, only her phone is still 8.1. My desktop and tablet, as well as the Voyo micro desktop are all 8.1. The 17" Toshiba laptop that I use only to check something, and to pretest Windows 10 tweaks is also 10. I've a second laptop 15.6" with 8.1 I never use save for updates.

[hiljoball]

I use Foxit reader for PDFs. After this upgrade, the default programs table had been changed to make EDGE the default reader for PDFs.

 

Not hard to change back, but annoying.

 

John

[TheDuke]

Her is something that got.

Win 10 brand new machine. TXT files would open in Libre. Wenr to notifications / default and changed it to notepad ++. Didnt take.went to control panel and default programs there. It was set to libre. Made the change and all ok.

Strange there two settings for default prrograms.

[TheDuke]

Sorry for the spell errors but cant edit it on IPad.

[k4rs]

On my test machine the update to TH2 failed twice using Windows Update. I then downloaded a new .iso from MSDN and was finally able to complete the update. I was rather dismayed to discover that ALL of my settings had be reset to their defaults, and what really torqued me was when Windows Defender promptly deleted the utility I use to configure privacy settings with NO option to restore the file.

 

I know that these settings really do not stop the spying, but it makes me feel slightly better going through the motions...

 

Safe Travels...

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Two of my local PCs did their TH2 updates when a Check on Updates was done. I got tired of waiting for my laptop to get the update, I went to the download site and put the upgrade on a USB drive. That update seemed to take longer then the auto-updates.

[docj]

Here's one some of you should find helpful. Since I have Windows 10 Home edition I have no ability to block updates. The only thing I have any control over is when a restart occurs.

 

Things have been going smoothly since my Windows 10 install but there was an HP update for my printer that was trying to install every night but failing each time. A bit of surfing revealed that this was an old update which had been superseded by newer updates but it often caused this endless loop problem of trying to install.

 

It turns out that Microsoft did anticipate this sort of thing and also the installation of updated drivers that cause problems, etc. So they've released a tool which makes it possible to selectively hide and/or roll back specific updates. I just did that with the HP one noted above and we'll see if that prevents it from trying to install again tonight.

 

Here's a link to the tool: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930

[TheDuke]

I have that fix also but have not had to use it.

But, Have you tried the setting for wifi metered ?

I used that to keep 15/11 upgrade from installing right away.

[docj]

I doubt that I need to retract my last post but right after I posted it my two year old Toshiba laptop blue-screened and bricked. I loaded a saved image but It still won't boot. Oh well, it gets hard use and it was a piece of junk; the touchscreen had failed a while ago and the case was literally falling apart.

 

I hate having to reload all my stuff. At least almost everything important is in the cloud. But it's still a pain.

[RV_]

Sorry to hear that Joel. I hate having to do all the tedious reloading too. Then the updates! I restored a Vista slow Celeron early this year and it took days to get and install all the updates. I now include Vista with XP, and in a couple of years Windows 7, as systems I won't work on. 7 is OK but early ones have days of updates when factory restored.

 

This time I upgraded the desktop and laptop to new SSDs first, and after cloning put the old drive in the SSD box marked accordingly. I'd rather do that because the Window 7 units factory restored have years of updates and SPs before even reloading. Then I can skip most of the updates and all of the program loading. Then just drag and drop backed up files newer than the time of the clone.

 

I agree - PITA.

[wildmandmc]

Did upgrade on one of my customers yesterday 7 to 10. went well. long process for sure. monday doing upgrade from 8.1 to 10.

also no issues.

[bigjim]

To be clear for the challenged, does doing a "factory restore" mean just like you got it out of the box with none of your personal files or information on it? Is there a short answer as to why you should want to do it? Thanks

[docj]

Sorry to hear that Joel. I hate having to do all the tedious reloading too. Then the updates! I restored a Vista slow Celeron early this year and it took days to get and install all the updates. I now include Vista with XP, and in a couple of years Windows 7, as systems I won't work on. 7 is OK but early ones have days of updates when factory restored.

 

 

Because I'm as stubborn as a mule (and only half as intelligent) when I woke up this morning I began rebooting the "dead" computer to see if the outcome would change. Technically, it wasn't dead but was hanging up at the very end of the boot cycle. What really bothered me was that each reboot was slightly different with respect to what apps managed to get installed and where the hangup would occur. I'm the kind of geek who observes the bootup behavior and it bothers me for things not to be deterministic. In other words, in a system such as this the behavior should be predictable and consistent. Erratic behavior is not expected or desirable.

 

Nevertheless, after ~10 reboots I managed to get the system to successfully complete the boot process. Next I ran a couple of registry cleaners to make sure that those sorts of issues were resolved. I then ran the System File Checker (SFC) which is a Windows 10 version of Disk Checker and it didn't find any problems.

 

Surfing to search for Windows 10 "hangups during boot" did suggest that one thing that could be tried is to turn OFF Windows 10 Fast Startup. Even though that sounds contrary to logic I did come across some articles in which it had been observed that some computers had faster and more trouble free startups without Fast Startup in use. I haven't yet rebooted to try this out because I'm too afraid to do so!

[RV_]

Yes Jim,

A Factory restore is using the recovery partition or created recovery media, either disks, or flash USB drives, to reload Windows and all its support drivers for that machine, as well as the programs for burning disks, playing music etc., from scratch as it was when they made the image to restore at the factory. So all the bloatware and free trials have to be removed again, the newest version of the security software removal tools have to be downloaded to remove all traces of them, the Microsoft Office loaded needs to be uninstalled and/or deleted etc.

 

The reason to do that are several.

 

1. To sanitize my data off a computer I want to sell. I set up Libre Office and VLC as well as security for them as a courtesy.

 

2. To get rid of a bad infection someone brought their computer to me to disinfect but cannot be removed without it breaking the system software in revenge. Some just want a fresh start and have nothing to save but are not able to quickly tweak and unbloat a factory restored set of trialware and bloatware. I will always do all Windows updates and set up security either my preferences of Defender/MSE and Malwarebytes premium, and load the few utilities open source software I prefer.

 

3. To correct serious system software corruption once system repair tools and utilities and cleaners have been used, drivers reset etc. and failed.

 

For me I can restore images without having to rebuild the system from either images or a clone I kept for each with easily removable drives.

 

So images and clones can help us avoid having to reload all the programs personal music, pictures and other data, and especially the set up, cleaning, and Windows updates, to bring a five year old computer up to date performance wise and security wise, from a factory restore.

 

If I had a major failure it is usually something I caused by experimenting or trying new software. I make an image or fresh clone of my machine when it is running fine before any major projects and then it is an easy thing to restore it and start over however many times I need/want to.

 

The factory restore is the last ditch effort to get a machine with good hardware working fine again, or cleaned of personal info.

 

Usually a factory restore is a good time to clean the system after and do the inside blow out of accumulated dust on the Processor cooling fins and radiators on a laptop. Some computers act like they are corrupt when they run too hot. If a computer is more than a year old and never cleaned it will be running hotter than it would clean. Dust accumulations prevent heat dissipation. Many laptops I clean have literal hairballs completely blocking the radiator vents. Usually dust but the cat hair ones are the worst. Cleaning laptops is tricky in that a novice can spin the fans too fast and burn bearings or break fan blades. Some blow off wire connections being too enthusiastic. I use a big compressor and hold fan blades and wires when I get up close. I don't recommend for the noobs. And that canned air ices up and can damage hot or even warm components by freezing them, causing internal damage.