No Windows 11 Reinstallation Process Works

[DeloskyGA]

I was having performance issues on my laptop so I recently "Reset this PC" to try to resolve the slowness and any OS related issues.  That just made it worse because now things like the Plug and Play service aren't even running on my computer.

I want to do a clean install of Windows 11.  I went to the Windows 11 download site (Download Windows 11 (microsoft.com)_and created the Windows 11 Media Installation USB drive successfully.  I then restart my laptop pressing F11 to System Recovery.  With the Windows 11 USB drive plugged into either of the USB ports, I select Use a device > USB Drive (EUFI) and the laptop restarts, the USB drive flashes because it is being read, and then my laptop proceeds to boot back into Windows.

Secondarily,  have also reset the Boot Order to try to boot off of a USB drive first.  Here, the same thing happens where my laptop scans the Windows 11 USB drive and then proceeds to skip booting off of it and goes into Windows.

The third step I've tried is running Setup.exe from the USB drive directly in Windows.  When I try to Run As Administrator this file, I get the error, "Setup couldn't start properly.  Please reboot your PC and try running Windows 11 setup again".

There is nothing wrong with my USB drive.  Nothing wrong with either USB port.  I can edit the BIOS settings perfectly fine.  I can even boot into Windows without errors (just things don't perform well because I think there are some Windows 11 installation things not happening effectively).

At this stage, I have no options to get my laptop running optimally again.  HP wants to charge me out of warranty support for something I am 100% capable (as a 25 year IT expert) resolving on my own.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

See if this works...

If you are clean installing W11, have the flash drive plugged into a USB port.

Turn on or restart the PC, immediately tap the ESC key to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu and from that select the USB flash drive and press the Enter key.

[DeloskyGA]

This is exactly what I was doing.  Sorry I missed it in my post but secondary to hitting F11 to Recovery, I also did the ESC > Boot off of drive option.  Same issue, the computer reads from the USB drive (the drive flashes as it is read) and then skips booting off of it completely and goes back into Windows.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You indicated that you tried to boot the USB flash drive from the F11 hey.

If you also tried the F9 key and that didn't work either, I don't have any other suggestions for you to try. 

[DeloskyGA]

I'm beginning to question whether or not the Plug and Play service was ever correctly installed within Windows on this laptop in the first place.  I don't know what else besides a Printer Installation needs that service to run, but I can tell you from the first time I tried to install a printer (it's been almost 9 months now), I have been unable to.  And now with all of these issues I've had just trying to get the Plug and Play service - A Core Windows Service that should come with the operating system - working, I just don't see any other root problem other than the laptop never had the service running in the first place:

• Any time I try to run Windows Installation media from the desktop, I get, "Setup couldn't start properly.  Please reboot your PC and try running Windows 11 setup again". 
• Microsoft Support (they were actually very helpful AND AT NO COST to the customer) ran SFC and some other tools along with trying a Windows 10 in place "downgrade".  That failed.
• This computer won't boot off of known good bootable Windows Installation media from USB even when HP Diagnostics has detected ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH ANY HARDWARE.
• No matter how many times I Reset This PC from Windows, the Plug and Play service never gets installed.  That is an image from HP!!!

I truly believe that this laptop was probably a lemon from the factory and I just never came across a scenario that I had to use the service until I tried to install the printer.  But now that the laptop is no longer under warranty, HP is going to make me pay for support when I don't think this is something that I should have to pay for.  I've run Full System Diagnostics.  I've done a full Windows Reset.  I've updated all the drivers.  I've done all the things a consumer should be expected to do.  It isn't like it is a hardware failure.

I've been in IT for 25 years.  I've repaired Windows PC's since the Windows 3.5 days.  I've configured Active Directory and hypervisors.  I'm ITIL and CompTia A+ certified and I'm a Cloud Architect for Microsoft for crying out loud.  I can tell you that there is nothing physically wrong with this laptop and that it is software based which falls back on HP.  But...it isn't under warranty.  So the only option is to pay for support.  Unbelievable.