Windows problems

[TheOstrich]

Just to mention that the latest update on Windows 10 appears to have created numerous problems for folk.

In my case:
a) the order of boot set-up was altered so the PC was attempting to boot up from the printer(!) - I managed to find a temporary work-around.
b) the Windows start menu failed to display when prompted
c) various apps failed to launch from the desktop / taskbar

b) and c) appear now to have been put right by a further update, but a) was more problematical and I've had, with the help of our computer guru, to make a permanent fix via the BIOS set-up.

Just saying this in case others with PCs are having similar problems.

I think WM mentioned a while back that he doesn't have "automatic updates" turned on - this is now sounding very sensible …

[Workingman]

Just to be very clear on this. Microsoft has made it very, very, very difficult for users not to update and / or select only the updates their particular machine needs. It can be done, but it is no simple task and it generally needs W10 Pro and other software for it to work.

The bottom line is that for Home users you will eventually have to take the update and then reset you machine the way yo like it to work. However, a good startup manager such as CCleaner will allow you to disable or delete some of the start up programs that slow your machine from booting and even running in the background. I only have four of 17 items available on boot. CC also allows you to uninstall some MS apps.

[Suff]

I second that, the simplest way to defer the bulk of updates is not to turn your PC off. You still have them, but they are not active till you restart.

I have a question about the boot issue. I assume you had it set to boot from USB first and then to hdd. Just as an aside, does your printer take memory cards or USB sticks and did you leave one in the printer? I assume the bios fix was to set the hdd to the first boot device?

The latest update from Microsoft is pretty hefty on the back end but not on the available features. It finally enables the bulk of updates to be Pre installed before reboot, in the background. This saves time but I guess that it changes a lot in the kernel.

My printer plugs into the ethernet switch and is not USB connected to anywhere. This means that with WiFi off on the printer everyone on the home network (WiFi or not), can print. Such as my son with his Android phone.

I will be doing this update shortly as my PC did exit the recovery work as functional but the registry and DCOM are borked making it constantly hang. Probably a full rebuild coming up.

[TheOstrich]

I have a question about the boot issue. I assume you had it set to boot from USB first and then to hdd. Just as an aside, does your printer take memory cards or USB sticks and did you leave one in the printer? I assume the bios fix was to set the hdd to the first boot device?

Yes, Suff, the BIOS fix was to set Windows Boot Manager as the first option. I have no idea what the order was before the problem started, not being a , but what I had found on investigation after the problem surfaced was that the printer (which is hardwired in and doesn't have any peripheral plugins) was being listed as option 1, with something else as option 2 and Windows Boot Manager as option 3. I do have a USB flash drive plugged in permanently to the PC as a storage device, that was option 4. There was also an Option 5 device, but I can't recall what it was. Probably the cordless mouse?

Hope that makes sense .....

[Suff]

Hi Ossie,

It makes sense in a kind of insane way. Normally a bios will only offer actually bootable USB devices for boot, i.e. a usb device with any kind of boot sector...

However, you can always use the boot override to boot from usb. Usually it's F12/F10. My current motherboard is F8 which is bizarre as it clashes with trying to force Windows into boot recovery.

[TheOstrich]

Yes, my temporary fix was F12 to get the BIOS menu up, then select Option 3 and click.
The permanent fix was to simply reorder the BIOS menu settings, so Windows Boot Manager was moved up to Option 1.
I can only assume something in that latest Windows update had corrupted/changed the order to cause the problem? Weird!

[Suff]

It sounds like you are running uefi and not bios Ossie. That is not so weird as the uefi options are written to disc and the firmware reads the disc on boot. Windows may have written something to
the efi boot area and the machine could have changed stuff because of it.

I had a problem with my niece's alienware with this and my son had to reinstall because of his HP refusing to boot from the correct disk.

Since then I've had a deep dive on both uefi and windows 10 boot loaders and can fix them but it is more like Linux black art geekzone than the simple bios menu of old.