Windows upgrade KB4549951

[TerryFleetwood]

Brand new to The Community so please excuse any ettiquette errors. Just purchased the above HP all in one. The reason i replaced my old HP PC was because i was having numerous problems with latest windows update KB4549951. I have paused the updates on my new machine. Should i let the update proceed? Thanks in anticipation of you advice Terry

[WAWood]

@TerryFleetwood 

You're probably best to pause it -- see this article about it:  https://www.onmsft.com/news/windows-10-kb4549951-issues

[TerryFleetwood]

Thank you very much for your time and advice. I can only pause until approx. 15th May, then windows will insist the update is done. What will solve the issue between now and then? Any advice/guidance would be gratefully received

[WAWood]

@TerryFleetwood 

Solve it -- ONLY if MS actually admits to the problem and issues a new KB which does not have the issues.

They HAVE done that in the past, but there is no guarantee they will do it again.

[TerryFleetwood]

Should i download the HP recovery tool just in case there is a problem. My HP is brand new are problems being experienced on new PCs or just older ones or is it random. Once again thank you for your advice

[WAWood]

@TerryFleetwood 

The problems aren't tied to the age of the PCs; instead, it's just that in recent times, MS has produced more and more Windows Updates that trash PCs.

I'm not a fan of factory resets -- not only do you lose everything, you have to do hours, if not days, of Windows Update to get caught up again.  Lot of work for little results.

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I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.