Solved Heads up -you might run into this with windows update crashing older systems

hsehestedt · Jul 17, 2023

spapakons said:
I was thinking to do a similar trick so I can upgrade my HP Stream 7 tablet that has less than 10GB free. I could clone the internal storage (32GB eMMC) in a larger USB flash drive (64GB), virtualize it, upgrade Windows abd then clone back to the tablet, but haven't found the time yet

Question: Are you currently running Windows in "Compact OS" mode? If not, you could compact the OS now, which will free up some space, hopefully giving you enough space to perform an upgrade, although, I must admit that with less than 10GB free space, I'm not sure if that would be enough space or not. Still, it's so easy to do that it might be worth a shot if it saves you a lot of time and grief. The last time I tested this, switching to Compact OS mode saved me about 2.6 GB of storage space.

In fact, you have me really curious now. Maybe I'll setup a VM with 32GB of storage and see if I can perform an upgrade install on top of an existing install with that small amount of storage.

Other possibilities: What about doing a clean install, or do you have too many programs and data on the system where backing up the data and reinstalling apps would be a pain in the backside? I know that one of the challenges in doing a clean install on those types of devices is sometimes that certain boot critical devices (storage, pointing device, touch screen) don't work during Windows installation, but that is a piece of cake to overcome.

If you would like any additional info on any of this, please do let me know and I would be happy to assist.

BrianInEngland · Jul 18, 2023

hsehestedt said:
@BrianInEngland is onto something here. What if the fault lies in the actual application or installation of the updates since you noted that "During the updates' restart, boom, blue screen"?

Maybe having a build that has the updates already packaged into it would help.

Now, I'm going to reveal something a little embarrassing: I have NEVER EVER even once used UUP Dump simply because I add updates to Windows images myself with my own program so I have had no need to use another program. Does anyone know how UUP Dump actually integrates the updates? Does it update only the main image (the install.wim) or does it properly update EVERYTHING?

By everything I mean:

Update the install.wim
Update the boot.wim
Update the winre.wim that is embedded within the install.wim
Update all setup files located outside of any of the WIM files

@glasskuter, I know that you said that you are really done this time, but if you ever revisit this you might want to try that suggesting of using a build that has the updates integrated into it. You might want to make one boot media created with UUP Dump and I can make another available to you on OneDrive that I made personally. It's nothing against UUP Dump - it's simply an unknown quantity to me and I have every confidence that my own images are done the "right" way, having included all the updates noted above.

I imagine the UUP dump process will create an ISO with everything updated. Worth a shot I guess. Maybe create the ISO on a different PC to the one that's crashing.

spapakons · Jul 18, 2023

hsehestedt said:
Question: Are you currently running Windows in "Compact OS" mode? If not, you could compact the OS now, which will free up some space, hopefully giving you enough space to perform an upgrade, although, I must admit that with less than 10GB free space, I'm not sure if that would be enough space or not. Still, it's so easy to do that it might be worth a shot if it saves you a lot of time and grief. The last time I tested this, switching to Compact OS mode saved me about 2.6 GB of storage space.

In fact, you have me really curious now. Maybe I'll setup a VM with 32GB of storage and see if I can perform an upgrade install on top of an existing install with that small amount of storage.

Other possibilities: What about doing a clean install, or do you have too many programs and data on the system where backing up the data and reinstalling apps would be a pain in the backside? I know that one of the challenges in doing a clean install on those types of devices is sometimes that certain boot critical devices (storage, pointing device, touch screen) don't work during Windows installation, but that is a piece of cake to overcome.

If you would like any additional info on any of this, please do let me know and I would be happy to assist.

Thanks for your help. I have already done everything to maximize free disk space. I have compacted the OS, compressed all the files, installed all applications on SD card (D drive), still there is hardly enough free space for upgrading Windows to a new version. Originally it had Windows 8. I clean installed Windows 10 v1709 deleting all partitions to get rid of the recovery partition and use all the disk. I could not upgrade so I clean installed v1809. Recently I clean installed v22H2 and I wouldn't like to do it again just to upgrade to v23H2 in October. I will most likely try to clone the internal storage on a USB flash drive and connect it to my computer to upgrade. Since a standard Windows installation doesn't boot from a USB disk I will have to use a virtual machine and configure the USB flash drive as the main disk. Complicated? For an expert no, but it is time consuming and my time is rather limited, so I postpone it as long as I can.

Ghot · Jul 18, 2023

@glasskuter

Might want to try creating the installation media with RUFUS. Option #2, here...

Create Windows 11 Bootable USB Installation Media Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to create a bootable USB flash drive used to install Windows 11 with UEFI support. You can use a Windows 11 installation USB flash drive to clean install, upgrade, reset, or repair Windows 11. The installation USB can also be used as a recovery drive to boot to...

www.elevenforum.com

I'm thinking that the latest WUs are balking about DEP instead of Secure Boot. Maybe RUFUS can get around that.

Another thing to try is to do your clean install again... then instead of using WU after the April updates...
do an In-Place Upgrade instead.

Back in July 2020, I was still stuck on Win 10 1909. No matter what I did it wouldn't do the 2004 feature update.
And my hardware passed all the eligibility tests for Win 10 and Win 11.
So... I tried an In-Place Upgrade... and it worked perfectly.

And last but in no way least, remember that all the Secure Boot hardening started in May 2023...

Additional guidance for devices using Secure Boot to address CVE-2023-24932

Microsoft Support: UPDATE 7/11: Second Deployment This phase starts with updates released on July 11, 2023, which adds additionally support mitigating the issue. Security updates released May 9, 2023 and later contain security hardening changes to protect against vulnerabilities tracked by...

www.elevenforum.com

spapakons · Jul 18, 2023

I see in Windows 10 download site Microsoft removed the Windows Update Assistant (I think that was the name) and there is no "Upgrade this PC now" option. They only left the Media Creation Tool and the direct ISO download (if you browse from a non-Windows device). I had some cases that the MCT could not upgrade the computer, but clicking on the "Upgrade this PC now" did the trick. It is the same as downloading and running the Windows Update Assistant. They removed from the Windows 10 download site, but if you Google it you can download it from another Microsoft site. Try this. However I believe your safest bet is to remove the disk, put it in another computer to upgrade and then put it back.

glasskuter · Jul 18, 2023

hsehestedt said:
I'm going to reveal something a little embarrassing:

You can't be embarrassed about that. Instead, being able to integrate your own updates and manipulate your iso yourself is something to be proud of. The only way I can do it is to follow someone else's step by step instructions. @BrianInEngland I had never even heard of UUP dump until I joined this forum. Now, that's something to be embarrassed about.

@Ghot, yeah after the second clean install I found DEP in the bios. I'd never run into it before. Disabling it did nothing.
I'm assuming DEP was replaced with secure boot(which I did not find in her bios) Is that right? I fully agree that it's somehow related to the secure boot hardening issue. That's one of the reasons I started this thread.

spapakons · Jul 18, 2023

Have you tried to disable Secure Boot?

glasskuter · Jul 18, 2023

Marked as solved since I no longer have the PC in my possession to try any other possible solution.
Thanks everyone.

kelper · Oct 19, 2023

My HP Mini also dates from 2010 and is running the latest version of Windows 11. The BIOS is F24. It started with Win 7 Starter edition an then I upped it to Win 7 Pro, Win 8.1 Pro, skipped 10 and went straight to 11.

spapakons · Oct 19, 2023

I wish I didn't need the money back then, so I didn't sell my Acer Aspire One A150 to my friend. I am not sure if its Intel Atom CPU was 64-bit, but I would at least have installed Windows 10 32-bit to play with. I had to sell it before even I had the chance to experiment with Windows 8.1. Original Windows 8 did work well apart from the native 1024x600 resolution wouldn't allow the new Metro interface (tiles) to work and it defaulted to desktop mode. Fortunately, there was a Registry hack to force the onboard Intel 945G graphics to change to virtual 1024x768 (squeezed to native 1024x600 on screen) which was the minimum requirement for the Metro interface, so I could have the full Windows 8 experience, including access to Windows Store games and apps. I bet it would cope well with a SATA 2.5" SSD, 2GB RAM and Windows 11, assuming the CPU was 64-bit. I had even dual-booted with Apple Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard turning it into a rather cheap "MacBook"!