Upgrade to ver 1709 - Fall Creators Update

A number of posts have been made about difficulties in upgrading to the Fall
Creators Update (ver 1709) and I've responded to several with some
suggestions that I've had personal experience with this past month.

I have a test bed system that has ver 1607 on it and a ton of other
utilities and software including about a dozen different VM's (VMWare), a
23" touchscreen monitor along with a second monitor, a Steel gaming
keyboard, wireless mouse with extra eSATA drives an overclocked i7 CPU and
memory, a mix of SSD's and hard drives... and well you get the picture - not
exactly a pristine system running a standard hardware configuration.

To summarize what I've told others:

1. Update everything first (BIOS, video, everything in Device Manager, MS
Updates, etc...)
2. Minimize the system hardware for the upgrade process
3. Disable 3rd party antivirus and all Startup items (use msconfig.exe or
CCleaner)
4. Upgrade

Tonight I ran a test on my test system and followed a typical upgrade
scenario - click on update and hope for the best. It did not work as I
expected would be the case and I got the System_Service_Exception error at
81% completion (
http://www.technicalnotes.org/fix-sy...in-windows-10/
)

Next I followed my own advice and the upgrade to version 1709 completed
without an error.

Note that when I say update everything, I mean everything and as I've
explained in a previous post that includes running the Intel Driver Update
tool ... but do not believe it when it states no updates found or that
everything is up to date. Open the Device Manager and right-click on every
item in the submenu's and select "Update Driver". You will be surprised at
how many Intel items (and others) will download and install an update even
though MS Update and Intel tools state everything is up to date.. The
biggest offender thwarting updates in my experience has been video drivers.
So be sure you have the latest drivers installed before upgrading.

Next, I minimized the hardware and disconnected all devices not needed to
run the system and disconnected the extra SSD's and hard drives. I kept both
monitors connected. With everything updated, the system hardware minimized
and startup items disabled, I then ran Windows Update. Version 1709
downloaded, installed and is up and running.

I will leave the system minimized for a day or two and start adding back
devices and re-enabling all the start-up items. That way, if something
burps, I'll have a better chance of isolating the problem.

I also have a clients Asus system on the bench right now that he could not
get to upgrade. I did exactly the same thing on it as I did on my test
system and it's at 55% in the upgrade process now.

Bob S.

A follow-up to my post above. The clients Asus system just finished
upgrading to ver 1709. The process I've described works but I can't say it
will work for everyone. Just be sure you have the latest drivers and
minimize the hardware.

Bob S.

On Sat, 11 Nov 2017 00:48:53 -0500, "Bob_S" wrote:

A number of posts have been made about difficulties in upgrading to the Fall
Creators Update (ver 1709) and I've responded to several with some
suggestions that I've had personal experience with this past month.

I have a test bed system that has ver 1607 on it and a ton of other
utilities and software including about a dozen different VM's (VMWare), a
23" touchscreen monitor along with a second monitor, a Steel gaming
keyboard, wireless mouse with extra eSATA drives an overclocked i7 CPU and
memory, a mix of SSD's and hard drives... and well you get the picture - not
exactly a pristine system running a standard hardware configuration.

To summarize what I've told others:

1. Update everything first (BIOS, video, everything in Device Manager, MS
Updates, etc...)
2. Minimize the system hardware for the upgrade process
3. Disable 3rd party antivirus and all Startup items (use msconfig.exe or
CCleaner)
4. Upgrade

Tonight I ran a test on my test system and followed a typical upgrade
scenario - click on update and hope for the best. It did not work as I
expected would be the case and I got the System_Service_Exception error at
81% completion (
http://www.technicalnotes.org/fix-sy...in-windows-10/
)

Next I followed my own advice and the upgrade to version 1709 completed
without an error.

Note that when I say update everything, I mean everything and as I've
explained in a previous post that includes running the Intel Driver Update
tool ... but do not believe it when it states no updates found or that
everything is up to date. Open the Device Manager and right-click on every
item in the submenu's and select "Update Driver". You will be surprised at
how many Intel items (and others) will download and install an update even
though MS Update and Intel tools state everything is up to date.. The
biggest offender thwarting updates in my experience has been video drivers.
So be sure you have the latest drivers installed before upgrading.

Next, I minimized the hardware and disconnected all devices not needed to
run the system and disconnected the extra SSD's and hard drives. I kept both
monitors connected. With everything updated, the system hardware minimized
and startup items disabled, I then ran Windows Update. Version 1709
downloaded, installed and is up and running.

I will leave the system minimized for a day or two and start adding back
devices and re-enabling all the start-up items. That way, if something
burps, I'll have a better chance of isolating the problem.

I also have a clients Asus system on the bench right now that he could not
get to upgrade. I did exactly the same thing on it as I did on my test
system and it's at 55% in the upgrade process now.

Bob S.

For XP & 7 I always got the iso and make a dvd and installed from
that. Still have to do this with 10.

My reasoning being that the online reading of your hardware and
software my not get things right and leave out something. The iso has
the 'whole' upgrade and does not make the same mistake.

Just have to remember for the next time.


KenW

KenW wrote:
On Sat, 11 Nov 2017 00:48:53 -0500, "Bob_S" wrote:

A number of posts have been made about difficulties in upgrading to the Fall
Creators Update (ver 1709) and I've responded to several with some
suggestions that I've had personal experience with this past month.

I have a test bed system that has ver 1607 on it and a ton of other
utilities and software including about a dozen different VM's (VMWare), a
23" touchscreen monitor along with a second monitor, a Steel gaming
keyboard, wireless mouse with extra eSATA drives an overclocked i7 CPU and
memory, a mix of SSD's and hard drives... and well you get the picture - not
exactly a pristine system running a standard hardware configuration.

To summarize what I've told others:

1. Update everything first (BIOS, video, everything in Device Manager, MS
Updates, etc...)
2. Minimize the system hardware for the upgrade process
3. Disable 3rd party antivirus and all Startup items (use msconfig.exe or
CCleaner)
4. Upgrade

Tonight I ran a test on my test system and followed a typical upgrade
scenario - click on update and hope for the best. It did not work as I
expected would be the case and I got the System_Service_Exception error at
81% completion (
http://www.technicalnotes.org/fix-sy...in-windows-10/
)

Next I followed my own advice and the upgrade to version 1709 completed
without an error.

Note that when I say update everything, I mean everything and as I've
explained in a previous post that includes running the Intel Driver Update
tool ... but do not believe it when it states no updates found or that
everything is up to date. Open the Device Manager and right-click on every
item in the submenu's and select "Update Driver". You will be surprised at
how many Intel items (and others) will download and install an update even
though MS Update and Intel tools state everything is up to date.. The
biggest offender thwarting updates in my experience has been video drivers.
So be sure you have the latest drivers installed before upgrading.

Next, I minimized the hardware and disconnected all devices not needed to
run the system and disconnected the extra SSD's and hard drives. I kept both
monitors connected. With everything updated, the system hardware minimized
and startup items disabled, I then ran Windows Update. Version 1709
downloaded, installed and is up and running.

I will leave the system minimized for a day or two and start adding back
devices and re-enabling all the start-up items. That way, if something
burps, I'll have a better chance of isolating the problem.

I also have a clients Asus system on the bench right now that he could not
get to upgrade. I did exactly the same thing on it as I did on my test
system and it's at 55% in the upgrade process now.

Bob S.

For XP & 7 I always got the iso and make a dvd and installed from
that. Still have to do this with 10.

My reasoning being that the online reading of your hardware and
software my not get things right and leave out something. The iso has
the 'whole' upgrade and does not make the same mistake.

Just have to remember for the next time.


KenW

You don't have to make the DVD. You can mount the ISO file
as a virtual optical drive in Windows 10, run the Setup.exe
off it, and do an Upgrade Install that way. The installer
is smart enough to do the copy-files step first while
the ISO is mounted, and it doesn't need the ISO any more
on subsequent reboots. That's how it's possible to install
a Win10 version upgrade, without the physical DVD being made.

A physical DVD is handy for other occasions, and it's for
emergencies that you want at least one DVD from that family.
You can continue to make the DVD, but you don't
actually have to use it during the version upgrade.
The "mounting the ISO method" is faster, if you have
enough cores on your CPU (like, you owned an Epyc maybe,
at $2100). Since the install.wim needs to be
decompressed, on weaker CPUs that will be the
rate limiting step. When you have enough CPU cores, the
5-7MB/sec of the optical DVD can be limiting.

Paul