I think the desktop was one of the cases where I had to resort to the Windows 10 installation media creation tool. I seem to recall I had to migrate from a Windows 8 system reset but Microsoft had discontinued its "free upgrade" program to Windows 10. Are you kidding? I was already upgraded to Windows 10 when I had to reset my system. Was it really going to charge me for a second license to recover from a Windows 10 failure? I really didn't see anything on Microsoft's website which addressed this issue, but I stumbled across a PC post which suggested Microsoft "knew" (digital key?) a system had been upgraded to Windows 10 and would activate during reinstallation/upgrade.
But my real hell was a red HP notebook I think I bought from Sam's Club in early 2014. I had had an HP notebook I had bought direct, but its hard drive was on life support. I had also been a user of Rollback RX, which basically maintains a history of daily and/or manual system snapshots. I think I ran into a cluster of 4 or 5 factory resets in maybe 4 months, which meant I had to reload my applications from scratch (including Rollback RX). I was suspecting a compatibility issue with Rollback RX and did not install it again. Since then, I haven't had to do another factory reset. This doesn't mean I haven't had Windows Update problems over the past 4 years, but most of them seemed to be resolved by some variation of this script:
net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver
Ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
Ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old
net start wuauserv
net start cryptSvc
net start bits
net start msiserver
Well, I ran into a dead end on primarily 0x800f0900 for MS 1803 update KB4284835. I did the usual SFC and DISM checks; I manually downloaded the patch; nothing seemed to stop the failed patching.
It wasn't just that. A couple of years I worked for a large defense company which participated in Microsoft's Office HUP program. (I'm still eligible for the program.) Basically, if you use Microsoft Office at work, for a nominal fee you could get a licensed copy to use at home. I thought I followed Microsoft's rules for registering the product (not under my hotmail/outlook account but under a license key model). It seemed like just a month ago I was launching MS Word for one of my documents. And then--it's like my Office software just disappeared. None of the product shortcuts were working. Was this correlated to my Windows Update problem? Not sure, but the timing was peculiar. I tried to "repair" Office through installed programs; all it seemed to do is remove Office from my program list. I eventually find my original MS HUP email from after I paid the fee and noticed there was a 64-bit option, but it wouldn't launch because I had a 32-bit version installed. How could I deinstall the software. So I reinstall the 32-bit version (which only seemed to install Word). And I didn't seem to have a link to register the product key. But at least now Office reappeared in my program list, which gave me a second chance to deinstall. I figured the only way I was going to get a registration link was to uninstall and reinstall the product (which seemed to take forever). It finally worked (I reinstalled the 64-bit version) and made sure I applied my product key. But I had never encountered this set of problems before, and I seemed to have issues researching HUP products.
The bigger issue was my Windows Update problem (not to mention my attempts to resolve the issue were met by half a dozen times to activate Windows via running the troubleshooter). And the media tool utility seemed to resolve it, although functionally it seemed to be a streaming type of install (like, say, a Chrome or Norton type of install over the Internet). It seemed to take forever; I was halfway expecting to having to reinstall everything, which I was dreading. At least Microsoft seemed to get this right: it looks like my programs and data seemed mostly unaffected, and it looks like my Windows Update functionality is back to normal--in fact, the latest July updates kicked off while I was writing this post.
It wasn't just that. A couple of years I worked for a large defense company which participated in Microsoft's Office HUP program. (I'm still eligible for the program.) Basically, if you use Microsoft Office at work, for a nominal fee you could get a licensed copy to use at home. I thought I followed Microsoft's rules for registering the product (not under my hotmail/outlook account but under a license key model). It seemed like just a month ago I was launching MS Word for one of my documents. And then--it's like my Office software just disappeared. None of the product shortcuts were working. Was this correlated to my Windows Update problem? Not sure, but the timing was peculiar. I tried to "repair" Office through installed programs; all it seemed to do is remove Office from my program list. I eventually find my original MS HUP email from after I paid the fee and noticed there was a 64-bit option, but it wouldn't launch because I had a 32-bit version installed. How could I deinstall the software. So I reinstall the 32-bit version (which only seemed to install Word). And I didn't seem to have a link to register the product key. But at least now Office reappeared in my program list, which gave me a second chance to deinstall. I figured the only way I was going to get a registration link was to uninstall and reinstall the product (which seemed to take forever). It finally worked (I reinstalled the 64-bit version) and made sure I applied my product key. But I had never encountered this set of problems before, and I seemed to have issues researching HUP products.
The bigger issue was my Windows Update problem (not to mention my attempts to resolve the issue were met by half a dozen times to activate Windows via running the troubleshooter). And the media tool utility seemed to resolve it, although functionally it seemed to be a streaming type of install (like, say, a Chrome or Norton type of install over the Internet). It seemed to take forever; I was halfway expecting to having to reinstall everything, which I was dreading. At least Microsoft seemed to get this right: it looks like my programs and data seemed mostly unaffected, and it looks like my Windows Update functionality is back to normal--in fact, the latest July updates kicked off while I was writing this post.
