Win10 Installer Error

Just a quick note on a potential fix
for a slight issue with the Win10 installer.

I have a dual boot Win10 Insider/Win10 Insider setup.
Both the partitions are on the same drive.

Most of the OS upgrades for it, have come
in through Windows Update. And those seem to
work OK.

I made my own DVD out of the install.wim 3GB file
that Windows Update uses. I used that to install
the second Insider copy of the OS. That was 14316
on both partitions.

Then, when the 14336 update came in, one partition
updated OK (via Windows Update). The other OS partition,
got ready for its first reboot during the install,
"burped" out an error, and undid the changes. The
message said it couldn't find "boot.wim", which I
presume was part of what it would use during the first
reboot cycle of the install.

I looked all over for a solution, and one thread
mentioned deleting the contents of C:\$Windows.~BT
when that happens. I tried it, started another install
attempt using my 14336 DVD, and it worked. It
succeeded, doing the usual number of reboots
and upgrading the partition.

To help it along, you can change the BCD boot manager
"default" OS choice. So when updating partition #4,
I set the boot default to partition #4, so the Upgrade
Installation would not need to be attended. I used EasyBCD
for this, because the failed install had created a third
(spurious) BCD entry that needed to be removed. And since
EasyBCD was open at the time, it was also easy to set the
default to make the install work a little better. I don't
think the installer would have been clever enough to change
the boot default on its own.

Now, if you were doing an OS Upgrade via Windows Update, your
only copy of the OS installer stuff, would be in
C:\$Windows.~BT , so deleting it would presumably
require downloading all over again. I didn't test that
such a thing would happen automatically. Instead, just
carrying on with "fixing it" for next time :-) I should
probably clean out C:\$Windows.~BT now, so this
cannot happen a second time...

And yes, cleaning it out is fun too. I presume Disk Cleanup
could get it, but I used another hammer for the job.

*******

And an icon went missing from the desktop. And in the
spirit of distrust, I had all sorts of theories as to
what happened to it. It turned out, it was a shortcut
icon for a removed folder of stuff (a shortcut to an
EXE in a folder that was removed). And since the folder
wasn't in my backup image of the OS, I presume I removed
the folder some time ago. It seems, when the Win10 installer
runs, it may be checking the "sanity" of the desktop icons.
And decided I didn't need that one any more and deleted
it. I was initially concerned it may have removed
a whole folder of software, but that wasn't the case.

And another observation. I noticed while snooping around,
that Windows.old, *does* have Program Files and Program Files (x86).
So it does have the ability to preserve stuff it has decided
to throw away. The deleted shortcut icon was actually stored
in Windows.old, which is how I could verify that was the
missing one. I had to use file lists for the newly upgraded
OS, and the old OS on the backup image, to even get close
to figuring out where that icon went :-)

So now, that's added another step to my "best practices"
procedure for upgrading to the next OS version. It
calls for using the Snipping Tool, and taking a
snapshot of the desktop, so I will be able to
identify what icon went missing, if it happens
again. There was no entry in the side-bar Notifications,
as to what happened.

Paul

On 05/04/2016 02:04 AM, Paul wrote:
Just a quick note on a potential fix
for a slight issue with the Win10 installer.

I have a dual boot Win10 Insider/Win10 Insider setup.
Both the partitions are on the same drive.

Most of the OS upgrades for it, have come
in through Windows Update. And those seem to
work OK.

I made my own DVD out of the install.wim 3GB file
that Windows Update uses. I used that to install
the second Insider copy of the OS. That was 14316
on both partitions.

Then, when the 14336 update came in, one partition
updated OK (via Windows Update). The other OS partition,
got ready for its first reboot during the install,
"burped" out an error, and undid the changes. The
message said it couldn't find "boot.wim", which I
presume was part of what it would use during the first
reboot cycle of the install.

I looked all over for a solution, and one thread
mentioned deleting the contents of C:\$Windows.~BT
when that happens. I tried it, started another install
attempt using my 14336 DVD, and it worked. It
succeeded, doing the usual number of reboots
and upgrading the partition.

To help it along, you can change the BCD boot manager
"default" OS choice. So when updating partition #4,
I set the boot default to partition #4, so the Upgrade
Installation would not need to be attended. I used EasyBCD
for this, because the failed install had created a third
(spurious) BCD entry that needed to be removed. And since
EasyBCD was open at the time, it was also easy to set the
default to make the install work a little better. I don't
think the installer would have been clever enough to change
the boot default on its own.

Now, if you were doing an OS Upgrade via Windows Update, your
only copy of the OS installer stuff, would be in
C:\$Windows.~BT , so deleting it would presumably
require downloading all over again. I didn't test that
such a thing would happen automatically. Instead, just
carrying on with "fixing it" for next time :-) I should
probably clean out C:\$Windows.~BT now, so this
cannot happen a second time...

And yes, cleaning it out is fun too. I presume Disk Cleanup
could get it, but I used another hammer for the job.

*******

And an icon went missing from the desktop. And in the
spirit of distrust, I had all sorts of theories as to
what happened to it. It turned out, it was a shortcut
icon for a removed folder of stuff (a shortcut to an
EXE in a folder that was removed). And since the folder
wasn't in my backup image of the OS, I presume I removed
the folder some time ago. It seems, when the Win10 installer
runs, it may be checking the "sanity" of the desktop icons.
And decided I didn't need that one any more and deleted
it. I was initially concerned it may have removed
a whole folder of software, but that wasn't the case.

And another observation. I noticed while snooping around,
that Windows.old, *does* have Program Files and Program Files (x86).
So it does have the ability to preserve stuff it has decided
to throw away. The deleted shortcut icon was actually stored
in Windows.old, which is how I could verify that was the
missing one. I had to use file lists for the newly upgraded
OS, and the old OS on the backup image, to even get close
to figuring out where that icon went :-)

So now, that's added another step to my "best practices"
procedure for upgrading to the next OS version. It
calls for using the Snipping Tool, and taking a
snapshot of the desktop, so I will be able to
identify what icon went missing, if it happens
again. There was no entry in the side-bar Notifications,
as to what happened.

Paul
I have the trash can on the desktop with a custom icon. Every new build
to windows 10 keeps all the other custom icons (home, docs, network etc)
but reverts the recycle bin to default. I have a .reg file to reset
it, but every build resets it. Odd little bug.