How I went from testing a new graphics card to screaming at Windows 10

Sometimes at Ars Technica, an employee has to call in a "sick person" for reasons other than illness, an emergency or a hangover. These are all mediocre working conditions, but I would say that the worst is worse: a computer crash.

All staff members have experienced at least one of these problems (or their ugly cousin, the Internet Service Provider), and have been left distracted or backed up to some extent. But when does the crash come to the thing you are supposed to test? This is a problem.

And when does this happen because you used official Microsoft downloads? Oh, it's an Ars article.

1809: The Sign of the Beast Windows Update

TL; DR: Everything is fine on my side, after a few headaches. There are not enough indications to declare that Microsoft has failed for all clients. But, as this is a holiday weekend, I thought I would use the ability to read slowly to tell a story a bit too long Windows. It seems to me that you will understand.

The trouble started when I came back from a trip in mid-November and that I offered a song sung "Honey I'm hooo-oome" to my nice baby: the game test machine Ars PC.

A bit of context: I am a proud owner of a Falcon NW "Tiki" built for years, which I upgraded earlier this year, as I had anticipated the launch of new GPUs for the general public. I wanted all new GPUs to be equipped with a more powerful power supply, a faster RAM and a liquid-cooled i7 processor. This upgrade to the system certainly helped me look at Nvidia's new range of GPU RTXs in September (with a few exceptions, which I'll come back to later).

Part of the upgrade process was a system cleanup and a new Windows 10 installation, which I have the pleasure of doing: it's always a good excuse to back up files and erase Windows garbage. It was in April and, although I am facing some license-related headaches for UWP applications since then, the system is functioning normally very well.

So, on my return, I was excited to see a major update awaiting download: Battlefield V and its fancy "Ray-Tracing" update, focused on RTX. (BFV The launch was strangely offbeat, with some customers playing two weeks ahead of standard edition owners, but we arrived as soon as possible in the hope of testing this RTX update and informing our audience of PC players.)

I had all my PC-patch ducks in a row. New Nvidia drivers? Check. BFV and the Origin client updates? Check. Windows Update, "check for updates?" Check. I was ready to draw some rays – and see what Nvidia's new super-sexy and ultra-sexy reflections pipeline would offer in a real-life game, as opposed to precooked demonstrations.

Again BFVThe menus still had no mention of ray tracing, and jumping into a game showed no difference. Huh?

I was ready to attack the bear to throw rays.

A quick look at EA's announcements confirmed what was still missing: a jump to the latest version number of Windows 10. I was running 1803, but EA has locked this update on Windows 10 build 1809. Hmm. This is a requirement that I had not seen before.

I've quintuple clicked the "Check Again" button of Windows Update in the hope of forcing an upgrade, but I have not been lucky. The default and staggered approach of Windows regarding official updates had excluded from the trusted pool. Often, it's a good thing. I'm glad I was not part of the recent "official" wave that erased My Documents from users, for example.

But this device is a test bench, which means that it is usually free of valuable files. In the case of a complete data deletion, I would be more upset to have to re-download zillions of gaming gigs (especially with a limit of Comcast monthly data), rather than losing crucial data. So, I was ready to attack the bear to throw rays.

"Undo Changes", "Undo Changes", "Undo Changes …"

My first step, force-an-upgrade, comes from the Windows Update Wizard, an officially announced Microsoft download that confirms your system specifications and version version, and then indicates whether your PC is ready or not. no for the next version of Windows 10 before starting the download. installation process. My PC was quickly given the green light for this application. After a 10-minute data download phase, the installer issued an expected "first of many reboots" notice.

Before going any further, it should be noted that I encountered some quirks of Windows before the upgrade process. Erasing some extra gigs on my installation disk, a 256GB SSD, I tried to remove earlier installations of Windows by rummaging through temporary files via the Windows 10 control panels. There, I saw an option to recover 6 GB of data that was dedicated to "previous Windows installation files". But that had two consequences: first, he left a message "Cleaning files …" on my screen for more than half an hour, and secondly, once the cleanup of the file completed, the option to delete this data has disappeared. only recovered 1 GB of data.

What happened to the other ~ 5GB? I could not say. I did not have any more Windows.old folder waiting in my C: drive. And a search in the usual suspicious dumps of "hidden" records revealed nothing.

"Undo changes made to your computer", insta-reboot. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Back to the Windows Update Wizard. When I told this upgrade tool to work, its first sync flag reached 80% before restarting my system. Then the restarted low resolution displays showed a counter of 17% before a sudden restart. Another screen briefly flashed: "Undoing changes made to your computer." Restart and go back to the previous version of Windows, working as if I did not do anything. I've tried again, only to see exactly the same percentage markers. Eighty percent, 17 percent "undo changes made to your computer".

The next step was to contact Microsoft Customer Service directly via the Windows Help interface. My first conversation with a customer service agent started with a harsh reminder – and I'd be happy not to share with you – that I should wait for my Windows 10 system to receive a 1809 download via Windows Update. If I did not have one yet, I should calm down. But I insisted, and I was ready to use the official Microsoft downloads to get to 1809 and its advantages in ray tracing.

After politely asking if I had any official download options, my first agent directed me to the media authoring tool (which had been advertised on the same site as the one where I was going to do it. had recovered the Windows Update Wizard). There were two types: an executable to launch on the existing Windows installation or a process of creating a boot floppy disk (which disturbs an ISO or Microsoft flash drive). I was told to continue with one or the other of these options. I have therefore installed the MCT executable on the affected machine and restarted it.

This time, the installation process required me to restart, but instead of a 17% scan, it displayed the message "Undoing changes to your computer" for a split second, and restarted. After loading my BIOS, the same thing: "Undo the changes made to your computer", insta-reboot. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Too angry with Microsoft for using Bing

After some furious Google search, I found some troubleshooting tips for the "Endless Restart Windows 10" issues, all of which revolved around the MCT flash drive option. However, all possible steps in this utility (such as repairs, system restores, and uninstalling updates) failed with blank error messages. As and when, I received a message "unfortunately, it did not work", followed by a "Log:" which contained no text thereafter. The newspaper was a lack of newspaper.

With this information in hand, I turned to Microsoft Customer Service again. Nobody knew where to go with my specific error state. The MCT facilitated access to a command prompt, but each command that I entered would generate specific errors indicating that something was not loading or was not recognized properly. The language barrier with some representatives of Microsoft has not helped. After I advised to try a "custom installation" via the MCT, an agent of assistance informed me that "all your applications on all your readers" would be deleted. When I asked for clarification (are we talking about UWP applications or all x86 executables?), I received the same instructions "All applications". (Of course, the answer was "no." My non-Windows drives would be fine, especially since I would be better served by unplugging unassigned drives before making any further changes to my C: drive. )

For now, I choose games easier to save on PC.

At the time of going to press, Microsoft had still not received a response from Microsoft about what it had recorded regarding the error I had encountered with other users in the database. same situation as me: find my Windows drive unable to recover from an endless restart loop despite exhausting all the troubleshooting options. We will update this article with any response, but the Thanksgiving holiday will probably delay it.

My next step should have been to email to my Windows assistant from a colleague, Peter Bright. Instead, I was suspended on a question to which Microsoft representatives did not respond in a clear way: my old paid Windows 8 license – which was upgraded to Windows 10 during of his limited free time – at risk if I opted for a complete wipe? The answer, which took me too long to understand, was no. The license was correct, linked to my Microsoft account and attentive to the specific hardware of my system.