Windows 10 Feature Update failure

[IanMB]

Computer: HP Pavilion 15-P289SA (purch 2015), 16 Gb, AMD A10 5745 64 bit quad processor, Realtek audio.

Current windows version: 1809 (yes, past its support end date!)

Quality & security updates to this machine run fine, but the feature updates sadly don’t – getting most of the way through over a 40-50 minute duration, and then requiring a hard power on rather than rebooting automatically.  At this point the system rolls back the updates applied (a further ~15 mins).  For a good while the update was trying to install version 1909; it never got as far as looking for 2004 or 20H2. Looking at the Update History, the error code was invariably 0xc1900101.

Having looked online for this error code I have tried:

• Temporarily turning off my AV (Norton360) (no difference)
• Running SFC /scannow (most recent run found some errors to fix, but I don’t know what)
• DISM (no errors found)
• Renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder to force creation of a new one.  This went trying to install 20H2 rather than 1909, but had the same outcome as before; but a different error code - 0x80240034.  It then immediately tried to update to 1909 again – same outcome, but back to 0xc1900101.
• Looking in the edb.log file in the SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\Logs folder, I searched for the error code.  The relevant bit of it seemed to be the following:

{3E5F2A16-8607-4C62-BDB1-D256BFFE634B}        2020-11-23 14:56:54:622-0000    1              162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]         101         {DAE2CE71-729B-45FF-8810-7BBCD473FF03}        1              0                UpdateOrchestrator       Success Content Download          Download succeeded.                LhUDb3URmE6M+lJH.1.1.18.1.51.0

{91B8FCF8-8743-4254-B2FB-B85781DF6E03}         2020-11-23 14:56:58:561-0000    1              181 [AGENT_INSTALLING_STARTED] 101         {DAE2CE71-729B-45FF-8810-7BBCD473FF03}        1              0                UpdateOrchestrator       Success Content Install   Installation Started: Windows has started installing the following update: Feature update to Windows 10, version 20H2  LhUDb3URmE6M+lJH.1.1.24.1.2.0

{2E08B2A5-97DD-423A-BE9F-FDF8F39C1B45}       2020-11-23 19:42:46:533-0000    1              201 [AGENT_INSTALLING_PENDING] 101         {DAE2CE71-729B-45FF-8810-7BBCD473FF03}        1              240005                UpdateOrchestrator       Success Content Install   Installation pending.       LhUDb3URmE6M+lJH.1.1.24.1.4.1.0

{E175C3D6-88CA-4C2A-8ED5-01FE67644BF3}       2020-11-24 06:20:42:348-0000    1              182 [AGENT_INSTALLING_FAILED]    101         {DAE2CE71-729B-45FF-8810-7BBCD473FF03}        1              c1900101                UpdateOrchestrator       Failure  Content Install   Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0xc1900101: Feature update to Windows 10, version 20H2.      LhUDb3URmE6M+lJH.1.1.24.1.4.1.0.0

As I write it’s trying again, but to 20H2.

Please can anyone throw any light on this?  Is there any way of finding out just what the update process is complaining about?  Does the finger of suspicion point at drivers on some of the installed hardware (albeit that neither HP support nor Windows update are showing any issues)?

I’ve seen a number of similar posts here with different hardware, and using different Windows versions.  However, I’m loth to have to do a complete Windows re-install, since presumably I’d lose any pre-installed apps that came with the machine as well as all my data and apps installed subsequently – and all the customisation on them that make them workable day-to-day.  A big job to reinstate them all!

[WAWood]

@IanMB 

There are ways to debug the Windows Update errors, but those are beyond the capabilities we have here.

You could try posting to the community Win10 forums (tenforumscom) to see what they suggest.

Some folks have reported that AV products can cause this issue, so if you have McAfee running, you would need to uninstall that and try again -- but then, I don't know how you would get it back.

Another option, since you appear to be using Windows Update, is to use an ISO file to force an in-place upgrade to Win 10 v1909.  See the information below about this.

You can try using Windows images downloaded using the tool from this site:

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-iso-download-tool

Click the Download: Windows-ISO-Download.exe link. This will download that file to your PC. Double-click that file to run it.

Download the tool, run it, and do the following:
1) Select Windows 10 at the upper right
2) Under Select edition, select Windows 10 Home Pro under the version 1909 heading
3) Click the Confirm button
4) Select the product language, click confirm button
6) Select either the 64-bit download
7) Select a folder to save the file -- it's downloading 4GB or so of data, so that will take a while depending on the download speed. The progress bar might not show any progress but when the download is nearly done, a window will pop open indicating the ISO file is being moved from a temporary download directory to the folder you selected. The screen will then say Download Complete.

Once you have this, download and install RUFUS and use the option to create a bootable USB stick from the ISO file.

Then insert the USB stick -- do NOT boot from it -- find the folder containing the files, right-click setup.exe and select Run ad as administrator.  This will start an in-place upgrade that will not remove your data, settings, or apps.

Good Luck

[IanMB]

@WAWood

Good morning and thanks for your response.

A few follow-ups if I may, please?

• Is it necessary to install all previous feature releases in order to be able to install one that is further ahead, ie does each release assume that the previous one is already present?  I've heard that 20H2, for example, only switches on functionality that's already present in v2004, so is a small update.  I'm on v1809, so I'm not looking forward to repeating this multiple times...
• Is there any likelihood that the 'forced' update once installed will stumble over whatever caused the attempted update via WU to fail?
• You mention AV - McAfee specifically - is it just this one supplier that causes grief, or is this likely to affect others eg Norton (ie mine), AVG, etc?
• Does use of an ISO file require re-activation of Windows (and therefore a Licence ID)?  And if so, which one - the original or any later one acquired (I have found 2 on my machine, which came with an OEM installation)?

Thanks in advance!

[WAWood]

@IanMB 

To answer your questions:

1) The monthly patches are Cumulative Updates, so installing the latest catches you up. The semi-annual Feature Updates,.might also be cumulative, but I'm not certain of that.  But either way, you can install the latest without having to install the older ones.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by "forced updates".  One way to do this is to manually download the update from Microsoft Update and then manually run it.  Any errors that failed this previously will likely occur again.  Another way is to do a Repair-Install, but that is not really an Update; that is a refresh and is more likely to work.

3) Any AV can be a problem -- as I have read about several instances in which folks removed their AV products and Windows Update then worked again.

4) Once a PC is running Win10, that activation is stored at Microsoft, so any reinstall or refresh, once you get back online, is automatically going to reactivate.

[IanMB]

@WAWood

Once again, thanks for your comprehensive reply.  I'll investigate the routes you suggest and see where I get, but it'll likely take some days - I will need to schedule anything carefully to avoid stuff I do for our local community shop.

[IanMB]

@WAWood

Well, I finally got round to trying again.  Results weren't promising:

• I de-installed Norton 360 and tried Windows update again.  Same result - stuck at one of the restart points and then went into a rollback.
• I did as you suggested and downloaded the 20H2 version of Win10 as an ISO from heidoc.net, and created a bootable USB stick using Rufus.  I then ran the setup.exe from this (having backed up everything in sight, of course) and ...  same outcome.  Stuck at a restart point, and rolled back when manually restarted.  At least it provided a bit of further info, with a message:
  The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during INSTALL_DRIVERS operation
  
  Not sure what to make of this!

It's currently trying to install 20H2 via Windows update again,  Obviously I doubt it'll have any different outcome.

So, 2 questions, please?

1. Are there any further options for getting this (or any intervening) new version other than re-installing windows completely?
2. What do I miss out on if I never take a further Win 10 feature update?

Thanks in advance,

    Ian

[WAWood]

@IanMB 

The last question is the easiest one to answer -- and MY answer is "not much"!  MS has been working on Win10 for years and years and, in my opinion, they are struggling to find anything really useful to add to it twice a year.  A lot of their new features have been oriented around Social Media, and since I do not use that, I have no use for those.  Recently, they have put a lot of work into integrating Android phones into Windows 10 -- but the catch is you have to run the MS UI on your phone, and I tried that, and did not like it at all.  They have also put a lot of work into Cortana and OneDrive -- two features I have totally disabled.

Here's an old link listing the new features for the May 2020 update:  https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2020/05/27/whats-new-in-the-windows-10-may-2020-update/

When I looked at that list, I saw NOTHING of use to me.

If you look around, you can find a similar list for the Fall 2020 update.

I wouldn't get the 20H2 version from Heidoc when you can get it for free from Microsoft -- but I suspect the result would be much the same -- and I don't have any solution for dealing with the install failure issues.

[IanMB]

@WAWood

Once again, thank you for your comments.  I suspected there might not be much in the release - like you I'm no social media fan, and don't use Cortana or OneDrive much.  I was more interested in whether the ending of support for my current release (1809) would mean MS will stop providing the cumulative updates, .NET updates, security fixes and the like for that version - I did have a couple of updates the other day of that ilk, but for some reason my update history isn't showing them. Qué?

I will see how the latest WU update attempt goes - it's pending restart now.  What my update history does show is that there's been a driver update (from HP) two days ago.  Don't know how to work out what this was, though!

Thanks again,

              Ian