Update Crashes Laptop,Explorer Not Registered!!

Update Crashes Laptop, BIOS Don't See Boot Drive, Drives Renamed and reversed Explorer Not Registered!!

I have to use imaging ware to erase the destination drive and restore to it.

What do I do to get back on the update train!

Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 22H2
Installed on ‎12/‎16/‎2022
OS build 22621.1105
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22638.1000.0

Here's a lot of questions for you, but they're all pertinent for us to see the whole picture of what's happening to you and what you've done trying to fix it. IMO It sounds like you may have more than just a troublesome update problem.

You said you installed Windows 11 on 12/16/22. Was that a clean install or an upgrade from Windows 10?

It would help if you could tell us what update crashed it.

You say drive letters were reversed. In all honesty, I have never heard of an update causing such a thing to happen. Did you attempt to point bios boot order to the new drive letter assigned to your boot drive? A cellphone picture of that would have helped.

Did you attempt recovery options to perform startup repair or uninstall the offending update.. (Shift key down during boot) Start your PC in safe mode in Windows - Microsoft Support

Also from recovery options (once you straightened out your boot order)you could have attempted to boot in safe mode which could have eliminated a graphics driver being incompatible.

All the above were things you should have tried while your system was failing. Now for a few things to do while in a working environment before next update install attempt.

While it's working post us a screenshot of disk management. State which drive is your boot drive. Also tell us if you are dual booting.

Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this update to go wonky. Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer
follow up with another sfc /scannow command to make sure that dism repaired the files.

Make sure all external drives are disconnected before applying any major update.

Make sure you have the latest driver and software package from Nvidia dated 3/14/23 in case your current driver is incompatible or corrupted. First go to settings>system>windows update and pause updates for 7 days. Use DDU to uninstall the old driver and all Nvidia related software before installing any new driver package. Read the DDU instructions carefully.
get DDU here Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 18.0.6.1

new driver from here. Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers If you are a gamer select game ready type. If you are not a gamer select studio type

After you successfully get the new driver installed, go back to windows update and un-pause updates.

I also highly suggest you make sure you are running the latest UEFI bios update for your motherboard. I know nothing about zTecpc but it seems their website has no support for updates. If you don't know where to go for bios updates, contact zTecpc.

Thank You,

Clean install
Killer update# KB5022913
See THIS LINK I was not the only one. I finally got Macrium to restore as before the update but it still crashes when attempted again. You were on a thread with me when it happened. I got it back up but the next update did same. A different number.

Did you attempt recovery options, the computer was dead in the water responding to nothing. I did get to those windows help choices but it was futile.
While it's working post us a screenshot of disk management. Attached. it has the USB image drive shown, but its never attached unless imaging or restoring.

Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow. Windows Resource Protection did not but find any integrity violations.
Make sure all external drives are disconnected before applying any major update. I did, there was none.

I will look for a BIOS update. And do the graphiccs driver thing soon. I havea medical proceedure tomorrow but I'll be back soon.

MS released this statement: "After installing KB5022913 or later updates, Windows devices with some third-party UI customization apps might not start up," Microsoft said.
If you are using any third party app that alters the GUI such as explorerpatcher or startallback, uninstall it. Windows 11 KB5022913 causes boot issues if using UI customization apps

After reading your link, that particular user's crash mentioned NVLDDMKM critical Event 14 issues in the Event Viewer and also that the user had Nvidia GeForce installed. That user's GPU is GTX 1080 TI which I believe is for a PC. Coincidentally, it appears that GPU uses the same driver as your notebook GTX 1650.

Attached is the release notes from Nvidia regarding the new 531.41 driver. Nvidia's instructions say to update your GPU driver through Geforce Experience. You can try that if you wish.
If you're upgrading drivers you do not have to use DDU before installing the newer drivers on top of the old ones. If you're having issues related to your graphics card, then you can use DDU to ensure there is no hidden files affecting the drivers. DDU is considered a means of wiping all traces before updating a graphics driver.

Regarding your disk management screenshot, your fixed disk layout is identical to mine though I use a PC. My m.2 boot drive is disk 1, my storage drive is disk 0. Like you, my usb drive disk 2 is being recognized as a fixed hard drive rather than as a removable disk.

I've done a lot of reading. It seems there are scattered reports of a small number of machines that drive letters were changed by one update or another and these reports go all the way back to Windows 10. Manual drive letter assignment worked for some. For others as soon as computer was booted the problem came back. In none of the articles I read was there a definitive answer or solution.

You may think I'm crazy but here's the way I would approach this step by step.

1. While in a working environment, uninstall any 3rd party app that alters GUI.

2.. Get your GPU driver updated and any bios update if you can. Even if you can't get a new bios, reset uefi bios to default. Restart and verify everything is working. Shutdown.

3. Remove all drives except for system drive (disk 1)and restart . Turn off any 3rd party antivirus software. Apply update.

4. If the update applies correctly, shut down and install Storage Evo (Disk 0) Boot the laptop and see what drive letter Windows assigns. It will probably assign D. Manually change it to a letter higher in the alphabet. (example S: sounds good for storage.)

5. Plug in usb drive. Check disk management and assign a fixed preferred drive letter. (example I: for images or whatever you want)

Restart and make sure the drive letters remained persistent. Once everything is correct, make a new disk image.

The true test will be ongoing. It will take another update Tuesday to prove it's all ok. (second Tuesday each month) If you've made changes before the next windows update Tuesday, make another image. Turn off 3rd party antivirus. Disconnect the usb drive leaving only disk 0 and disk 1 and let the update apply. Hopefully, it will apply correctly and not change any letters.

I know of nothing else to try. Maybe someone else has a better suggestion.

I find this a bunch of crap. Computer is running fine and an update destroys it and I get all these hoops to jump through for suggestions. Total BS. My credibility rating for this site just took a big hit.

Well darn, I was going to add something here...

gapi said:

My credibility rating for this site just took a big hit.

Click to expand...

We are volunteers, not Microsoft employees.
Other users have not had a problem with this update. If they had the web would be flooded with complaints. Therefore we have to assume it is something specific to your system. All we can do is suggest things that COULD be the problem. We have no way of knowing why you encountered the issue EXACTLY.
Speaking only for myself, I think you need an attitude adjustment.
Have a good day.