[AccessD] Windows 10 Updates - Fun and Games

[James Button]

Can't help with your enjoyment of your "enhanced user experience".

However I would use the Microsoft Chat Line facility - take a few hours of a
Microsoft technician's time to make the point that your 'Windows 10' system is
experiencing problems with the Microsoft  'Update facility' 

Both keyword sets qualify for 'no-charge support' 
Expect to have a good experienced technician take a couple of hours to
investigate and fix the problem using remote access, and one of the less good
ones to faf around for most of their working day.
Make sure that you have their ref number, and the web link to get back to that
tech after they restart your system.


JimB

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Heenan,
Lambert
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 7:39 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'; 'ACCESS-L Email
(ACCESS-L at PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM)'; 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: [AccessD] Windows 10 Updates - Fun and Games

Here's another fine example of the trials and tribulations of Windows Update.

On the evening of March 5th, having left my Windows 10 box running unattended
for a couple of hours, I came back to it to find a blue screen telling me that
"Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC", and I had the option to Shut Down or
go to Advanced Options.


Naturally I chose Advanced Options and was presented with another screen with a
variety of choices, including:

* Restart the PC
	- tried that, with no luck. Back to the same screen.
* Retry Automatic Repair
	 - tried that and it failed after a few minutes
* Reset the PC 
	- did not like the looks of that 
* Restore from a Restore Point 
	- That looked good as I did have some restore points. When I tried it, I
was shown a list of available restore points, but when I chose any of them and
hit the button to move on all I got was an error about some instruction
referencing memory is some whacky location. In short Resorting was not going to
happen.

I went around the options a couple of times, but after an hour had made no
progress so I gave up and powered off, thinking  "looks like I need to dig out
that Windows install DVD". Just for kicks and giggles I powered it up again
straight away, and to my surprise and delight the thing booted up into the
normal login screen. So  logged in and immediately created a new restore point.

At that point I powered down and went to bed.

Then on March 8th, having left the machine running and idle for a longish time
the same thing happened.  Got the "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC"
screen. This time however I was up and running in a few minutes as the restore
point I created on the 5th was functional.

It seemed evident to me that I was falling foul of an automatic update that was
happening during idle time. Having only Windows 10 Home I have essentially no
control over the update process.  So I took a look at my update history and sure
enough, on the 5th and 8th there were entries showing one of those cumulative
updates having failed to install (forget the KB number, but I can post it later
if anyone wants to know). 

Then last night, while looking into the situation again, I opened the windows
update screen and saw that there was a new cumulative update dated March 9th
awaiting download and installation.  So I thought, perhaps if I let that one get
installed, being later than and so superseding the update that had failed twice,
perhaps this new update will have had the bugs swept out of it. Sure enough, it
did in fact successfully install without any problems. 

Pity the poor average Joe presented with this situation. I see lots of money
being handed over to Geek Squad to sort this out for non-computer savvy users.
And I wonder when something bad like this will crop up again.

Lambert


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