Automatic Windows 10 update causing mega-problems

I haven't used the new Win10 machine for about a month. Switched it on
tonight and got on with some work. Then a pop-up appeared telling me an
update was waiting to be installed, so I closed what I was doing and let
it get on with it.

An hour and a quarter later, the Welcome Screen appeared, and then the
normal desktop. And that was when the problems started. The desk top is
alternating between the Task Bar (empty), with the background picture
and occasionally my program icons, and then a blank screen. Cycle
frequency is about half a second. I have managed to open the Task
Manager via Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but I cannot do anything else. Mouse and
keyboard are working, but I cannot open anything else.

Task Manager shows 99% CPU usage, with the main culprits being:
Host Process for Setting Synchronisation (~16%)
Microsoft Windows Search Protocol Host (~16%)
Service Host Remote Procedure Call (2) (~12%)
and intermittently Windows Explorer (~15%)
and intermittently System (~12%).
There are about another two dozen tasks using between 10% and 0.3% of
the CPU. All the CPU usage figures are constantly changing.

I can switch the computer off using the Ctrl-Alt-Delete option, where
the Power option appears at the bottom of the screen. I've tried
rebooting three times, twice with a Restart and once with a power off.
Still the same.

Any help greatly appreciated, thanks.

jim

jbm wrote:
I haven't used the new Win10 machine for about a month. Switched it on
tonight and got on with some work. Then a pop-up appeared telling me an
update was waiting to be installed, so I closed what I was doing and let
it get on with it.

An hour and a quarter later, the Welcome Screen appeared, and then the
normal desktop. And that was when the problems started. The desk top is
alternating between the Task Bar (empty), with the background picture
and occasionally my program icons, and then a blank screen. Cycle
frequency is about half a second. I have managed to open the Task
Manager via Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but I cannot do anything else. Mouse and
keyboard are working, but I cannot open anything else.

Task Manager shows 99% CPU usage, with the main culprits being:
Host Process for Setting Synchronisation (~16%)
Microsoft Windows Search Protocol Host (~16%)
Service Host Remote Procedure Call (2) (~12%)
and intermittently Windows Explorer (~15%)
and intermittently System (~12%).
There are about another two dozen tasks using between 10% and 0.3% of
the CPU. All the CPU usage figures are constantly changing.

I can switch the computer off using the Ctrl-Alt-Delete option, where
the Power option appears at the bottom of the screen. I've tried
rebooting three times, twice with a Restart and once with a power off.
Still the same.

Any help greatly appreciated, thanks.

jim


First step, is back up C: using your Macrium Reflect boot CD
and your external USB drive (or some drive other than the
drive C: is sitting on, for safety).

The purpose of making the backup, is so things cannot become
worse than they already are. You can always restore from that
backup, if a non-reversible change happens to make things worse.

*******

After you've done that safety step, you can
try restoring from a System Restore point. When the update
installed, it should have set a restore point. That does
things like capture the registry files, before the update
happens. The process uses VSS or volume shadow service.

The best restore points, are the ones you just made ten
minutes ago. Not the ones that are three months old. The
idea here, is only to reverse the Update.

This article describes how to use a Restore Point via
the facilities already in Windows.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

(They use shift-Restart here...)
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Now, unfortunately, Microsoft has from time to time,
disabled System Restore without warning. And I don't know
if the system makes a fuss about this, when doing updates,
so you may not notice you weren't protected. There is
a picture in the above article, of a "bunch" of restore
points. The mechanism can only store the restore points,
as a function of the allocated storage, plus the aging
policy. If there isn't enough space, it might only
have the one restore point. If System Restore is entirely
disabled, then you've got no Restore Point to work with,
so this idea is then toast.

Also, if you operate the System Restore "restore now" thing
while in Safe Mode, there is no revert. It's a one-shot
deal. To protect you, that's why we did the backup as
the very first step. Chances are you won't be in Safe Mode,
but it might come to that. You might be able to do a
Restore Point thing, from the emergency boot CD, but
that might be a different recipe.

The executable, I think is rstrui.exe. That's if you
were stuck in a command Prompt window or something.
That's what it used to be called.

HTH,
Paul

This is one of the reasons I've stayed with : old, reliable, user
friendly, update predictable, - Windows 7 !

SteveGG wrote:
This is one of the reasons I've stayed with : old, reliable, user
friendly, update predictable, - Windows 7 !


Same here, except for me it's 8.1.