Windows 10 Fall Creators Edition Redux
After inhaling deep through clenched teeth, I decided to try again with updating Windows to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Edition 1703. The Windows 10 updater now seems rather persistent in doing so. I think the extended procrastination period expired.
I suspect part of my previous issues with the update failing is running Windows 10 in a virtual machine using raw disk access. I suspect the updater is trying to mangle — oops — modify partitions or the MBR. Or something like that. Who knows.
Letting Windows 10 try a direct update again failed. Same massive download. Same result when trying to repeat the update — a full download. Somebody at Microsoft needs to be introduced to common sense.
I rebooted Windows 10, inserted the 1703 ISO image, and launched setup.exe. A purple dialog appeared. A few prompts later and I was watching a progress indicator and text that said, “Checking for updates.” I watched the network status and discovered “checking” means downloading. Eventually the network activity numbers hit at about 60 MB transmitted and 2.3 GB received when the progress text changed to “Please wait.”
I remain dumbfounded that downloading or “checking” requires 60 MB of sent packets.
I was offered an option to install Windows 10 and a second option to keep personal files and apps.
I had a full backup, so clicky clicky.
Then the dialog grew to full screen with no ability to monitor anything else. I was informed the system would restart several times and the process might take a while.
The first pass took about 15 minutes and rebooted. Next was a blue screen with the spinning balls progress message. The progress this time was about the same as watching snails race.
After about 50 minutes there was another reboot and then the same blue screen with the spinning balls progress message. then another reboot about 15 minutes later. Then another reboot.
Total time? About 90 minutes. Mind boggling.
I was presented with a full screen dialog where I had to choose privacy settings. I thought the installer was supposed to preserve user settings? Do I have to run Powershell scripts again to scrub the system?
After logging in I was presented with more screen messages and not to turn off the computer. More dribble drabble messages. The login took about 10 minutes and I was surprised to see the same desktop.
I logged out and repeated the process for the non-admin account. Same dribble drabble messages and the login took about 5 minutes. More surprising, seems all of my previous configurations remained untouched.
I finally got the system updated. I have no idea why I could not update directly.
I wasn’t going through this irritation again. I deleted gigabytes of files from the previous version. That took more than an hour.
What an exhausting operating system. What again are the benefits of this advertising and privacy invasive operating system?
Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: Windows
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