On a system with Avast antivirus installed, when upgrading to Windows 10, version 1803, Windows automatically restarts and one of these two conditions might be experienced: The upgrade appears to complete, but after signing in, you observe a blank screen with only a Recycle Bin and a taskbar. The mouse cursor is present, but the Start menu may not function. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del runs the Task Manager, but the Task Manager may not be helpful. During the upgrade, Windows restarts to a screen that prompts you to “ Choose your keyboard layout ”. From there, troubleshooting options can be selected, but none of them appear to resolve the issue. For example, if Windows Rollback is selected, the entire process repeats.

Updated (5/25/18): In cooperation with Avast, Microsoft has identified an element of the Avast Behavior Shield that conflicts with the April 2018 Update, and that may result in this experience. Avast has released an update to prevent this issue from occurring. Once you’ve restored your system, make sure your Avast antivirus is up-to-date. You can use one of the following methods to restore Windows. If your system currently boots to the Choose your keyboard layout screen, please try Method 1 first. Otherwise, skip to Method 2, which is a variation of a solution posted on the Avast forums . Method 1: Use Command Prompt to repair Windows Rollback At the “ Choose your keyboard layout ” screen, select a keyboard (such as US ). At the “ Choose an option screen” , verify that the top left tile reads “ Continue – Exit and continue to Windows Rollback ”. If this is not the case, please do not proceed further and use Method 2 instead. Select Troubleshoot . Select Command Prompt . In the cmd.exe window, type bcdedit and press Enter. There should be 4 entries displayed. Ignore the first entry, called {bootmgr}. The next entries should all have an attribute called “ device ” or “ bootstatdevice ”, which will have a value similar to partition=E: In the cmd.exe window, switch to the drive letter you noted in the previous step. In this example, you would type E: and press Enter**.** Type the following command and then press Enter: copy \Windows.old\Windows\System32\OOBE\SetupPlatform\SetupPlatform.exe $WINDOWS.~BT\Sources 9. When completed, you should see the output, “ 1 file(s) copied ”. If you see any other output, please do not proceed further and instead use Method 2 In the cmd.exe window, type exit and press Enter. This should return you to the Choose an option screen. 11. Select Continue – Exit and continue to Windows Rollback . 12. Your device should restart and Windows Rollback should then successfully restore your system to the previous version of Windows. Once you are successfully restored, Microsoft recommends that you do not attempt to manually install the April Update – please wait until Windows notifies you that the update is ready for your device. Method 2: Perform an in-place upgrade To restore your system, you will need: A blank USB drive with at least 8 GB of disk space Another working Windows PC that you can use briefly (for example, a 2^nd^ computer in your home, a friend’s computer, or one at a library or print shop) On a working PC, go to the Microsoft software download website . Download the media creation tool and then run it. Select Create installation media for another PC . Choose a language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit). Follow the steps to create installation media on your USB drive, and then select Finish . On the computer that is experiencing the problem, use the power button to restart until it boots to the blue recovery screens. (You do not need to boot to the USB drive you just made.) At the Choose your keyboard layout screen, choose your keyboard layout (e.g., US ). At the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot . Select Command Prompt . In the cmd.exe window, type C: and press Enter. (If Windows is saved to a drive other than the C: drive, type the appropriate drive letter.) Type the following command and press Enter. This command renames the Windows.old folder to protect your personal files from being overwritten in certain scenarios. Ren Windows.old Windows.old.bak 12. In the cmd.exe window, type exit and press Enter. This should return you to the Choose an option screen. 13. Select Use another operating system . 14. Select the second option, “ Windows 10 on volume X ”, where “ X ” will be a number. 15. Wait for Windows to load the desktop. (If necessary, enter your password to sign in.) You may have to wait a long time for the desktop to appear while the “update” gets ready. 16. Once the desktop attempts to load, close any error messages that appear (such as “C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop is unavailable”). 17. Right-click any blank area on the taskbar, and then select Task Manager . 18. If necessary, select More details , so that you can see the Menu bar. 19. Select File , then Run new task . 20. In the dialog box that appears, check the box for Create this task with administrator privileges . 21. Select Browse… 22. Insert the USB drive you used to create installation media on the working computer. Navigate to your USB drive and select setup.exe. 23. Run the setup.exe file and follow the steps to “upgrade” Windows. Uncheck the boxes for “check for new updates” and “help make this version better”. If you are asked what you want to keep, make sure you tell it to keep everything! 24. Setup may take some time to run. Once completed, your system should be restored and fully up-to-date. You may need to sign in again to your Microsoft Account. 25. If you lost any personal files during the upgrade process, you can retrieve your files from the Windows.old.bak folder you created in step 11. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows.old.bak. Select the Users folder, and then your user account name. Open the folders that contain the files you want to retrieve and copy/paste the files into a desired location.

Here's what I did to fix my husband's laptop: There are two methods to fix this update problem that are recommended by Avast and Microsoft: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...a-choose/8ff0d933-8819-4945-9f0c-17ac854400e2 . The first tells you to do a rollback, the second suggests an in-place upgrade. Both stink if you can't reach the command prompt, which I couldn't because I was only offered the suggestion of logging into my account which wouldn't accept the password, despite the fact that it was correct. Now the steps that I followed that ultimately end up working (yay!). I started using Microsoft's steps until they didn't work anymore. From "them" - To restore your system, you will need: A blank USB drive with at least 8 GB of disk space Another working Windows PC that you can use briefly (for example, a 2nd computer in your home, a friend’s computer, or one at a library or print shop) On a working PC, go to the Microsoft software download website . Download the media creation tool and then run it. (be sure to format the USB drive first or this will fail, and be prepared for this to take awhile) Select Create installation media for another PC. Choose a language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit). (if you have a newer laptop it's probably 64 bit) Follow the steps to create installation media on your USB drive, and then select Finish. Now from here on out this is what I did: Get your wrecked laptop to the Choose An Option screen then choose "Use a device" On the next screen I chose EFI USB Device It then got my USB blinking and popped up a window saying "It looks like you started an upgrade and booted from installation media. if you want to continue with the upgrade, remove the media from your PC and click Yes. if you want to perform a clean installation instead click NO." I chose No and it got me to a Windows popup asking for language, time & currency, & keyboard method. I clicked Next and the next window showed "Install now." Repair your computer is an option at the bottom, but it just goes to those wonderful options that we've all been seeing that don't work so don't bother pressing that. I pressed Install Now and it wanted to know where to install. I chose the first, highlighted, partition option. At this point it started rolling. I may have had something asking if I wanted to overwrite or upgrade or something. There was an option to either upgrade or to do a custom installation. I THINK I did the custom installation. All files were saved to OneDrive in the first place, so we weren't worried about losing stuff. Be ready with a new Windows password. We went to a functioning computer and did the "forgot password" link for Windows so that we would be confident that we were using the right password. After installation Cortana appeared with her slew of questions and at this point you will need to log into Windows. This is where it pays to be ready with the password because we ran out to get a new one and then the computer went black aside from the pointer. I had to pull the power plug while holding the power button to totally shut down (just holding the button until shut down still produced the same black screen upon startup). After the "real" power down it returned back to Cortana when it restarted. I may be a little off on those bottom 4 or so steps, but basically you are using your flash drive to install Windows again. You'll be wiping everything but at least it gets working again. To be honest, I was very surprised that using the USB actually worked.

In other news ... Dell says they'll help me fix the problem for $89. If I go this route, it will have cost me nearly $600 and a month without my computer to fix the problem Microsoft caused. Thanks, Microsoft. The least you could do is fire the so-called engineers who inflicted this monumental **** on your customers, AND ESPECIALLY their managers up to the level of Vice President. This branch of the organization is sick, and needs to be lopped off.

That sounds about like my case. I've been without my computer since mid-May as well. The differences are, I can't stand spending hours on the phone with tech support, so I am waiting for Microsoft to publish a solution, and I also can't stand not knowing if my files are safe, so i spent nearly $500 on a data recovery service. Microsoft totally screwed me & apparently many others with this update. At this point, I just want a clean install of Win 10 without having to pay for it. And they won't even tell me how to do that!

Hi, It can be frustrating when you are locked out of your files so long. I started following this and I decided to edit more and more tips in my initial contribution on page 14 . I'll give a few examples below. You should read them in context though. My priority with coming up with new tips is with saving (or not losing) your data/files. Good luck! Kind regards, BartDee. (I am Dutch.) GENERAL EXAMPLES (...) When you choose a Custom install or Upgrade , it will move your current Windows installation to the folder called Windows.old where you can recover your files later. (This is the main topic I am trying to help with here; if you did it again the content could get overwritten , but there may also be some doubt about it backing up like it was supposed to do the previous time.) If you need to backup things to feel safe and your Computer boots into the Desktop and you have storage available you can make handy use of a Task manager trick . Right-click the blank area on the Taskbar, and then select Task Manager. If this does not work press Ctrl + Alt + Del to select Task Manager. Or try Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager directly. If necessary, click More details , so that you can see the Menu bar at the top. Select File at the top, then Run new task (don't forget to check the Administrative privileges Checkbox). Select Browse... You now have access to some of the Explorer functionality . Select ' All files *.* ' from the drop down list above the buttons at the right. Do not use the buttons. Use the left pane to select folders and the right pane to select files , like in normal Windows Explorer. You can locate files you want to backup (in Windows.old etc**.**). Select them, Right-click and Copy , browse further to your storage, Right-click and Save . You will not see the Progress window but you will notice when the job is done. The screen may appear frozen but please be patient. You can compare the copied result later. Maybe on an other Computer. You might consider to make an extra copy in an other folder if you still feel insecure. Do this to at least an other partition if you can (but an other disk or other external storage preferably of course). === ! IMPORTANT ! With Method 2 Step 21 you should ALWAYS VERIFY Windows.old.bak BECAUSE IN YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION YOU MIGHT SEEM TO HAVE DONE THIS CORRECT BUT ON THE WRONG PARTITION IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE Windows INSTALLMENT! This is also your LAST CHANCE TO V****ERIFY if the CONTENTS ITSELF are really here if you did not do that already with one of the other tips. If you have only ONE Windows INSTALLMENT the drive letter is most likely to be D or C (the latter is a scenario where your System boots with and Windows operates from the same partition). Do not confuse this 'System' drive letter with the drive letter that you normally see in Windows Explorer they are not automatically the same. With Method 1 Step 6 you do not have to see four entries (this example is obviously based on someones personal installments). You should see Windows Boot Manager with the mentioned identifier {bootmgr} and at least one other entry of Windows Boot Loader with an identifier with a value. If you see only one entry of Windows Boot Loader then you should use the drive letter that you see with device there (this is with a value similar to partition=C :). If you see more entries of Windows Boot Loader and you normally do not manually select which Windows installment to start and you know that you did not make that manual choice with the Windows that went wrong now also , it automatically has to be the one that has the value {default} also. Please do verify this yourself first because there could be some kind of error/corruption that you are missing? If you know that you have only one Windows installment it should be simplest. If you know that you have more , one question that you could always ask yourself is if you changed it just now in your latest Session? (With System configuration in Control Panel for example?) The whole text from copy to Sources is on one line . Make sure that you used the letters OO in OOBE (this stands for OutOfBoxExperience). And that you used a space between copy and the next \ and between SetupPlatform.exe and the next \ also. If you still feel insecure about your result for the here proposed Method 1 Step 8 ( SetupPlatform.exe ) or Method 2 Step 11 ( Windows.old ) you might consider to check or do this with the Task manager trick . (So to double-check the contents or change to be secure.) === SOME OF THE LATEST I'M ADDING ABOUT ANTIVIRUS ETC. (...) This is a link to the Avast website you might want to visit first (for now) to make your informed decisions (** https://www.avast.com/ ). Their support page ( https://support.avast.com/en-us/ ) and their forum ( https://forum.avast.com/ ) with the article mentioned just above Method 1 for your convenience ( https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=219218.msg1463080#msg1463080 ). The article says that they got the original instructions from a Computer repair shop. It also states ' In cooperation with Microsoft we have identified an element of the latest Windows 10 1803 update that is incompatible with the Avast Behavior Shield, causing the aforementioned update to fail in some instances (...) '. Logic clearly dictates that this could effect the next Upgrade attempt as well. It also suggest that somehow updating Avast or temporarily removing Avast could help prevent it causing the update to fail again. If you choose to uninstall Avast you should run their Uninstall Utility ( https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-Antivirus-Utility ). Download this first to a secure location. To uninstall Avast you should do this in Safe boot (and disconnected from the internet). Several restarts may be required? To uninstall an Antivirus you are normally advised to do so in the 'Safe boot'. Often there is a special Uninstall utility to do this on the Antivirus Support website. Sometimes there are still leftovers that remain active almost unnoticed (usually a 'Service' or 'Run' entry for Startup items in the Registry). To uninstall it, it is best to do so in the 'Clean Boot'. The unwanted Services are sometimes recognizable by their name in Task Manager or Services Tab in msconfig. It can also be that the description is clear enough (the service , the manufacturer ). If you have enough experience, you can now remove the launcher from Run . (Be careful with this! Making errors/wrong changes in the Registry is dangerous!) If you don't have enough experience to make changes or are too unsure, you could also use a trick (for now) in the 'Clean boot'. Safe boot (and disconnected from the internet). Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task . Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig and Click OK . Within System Configuration select the Tab Startup. Put a check in the Checkbox for Safe boot and Click OK . Now reboot (to Safe boot). Right-Click the downloaded Avast Uninstall Antivirus Utility ( avastclear.exe ), and select Run as administrator from the Context Menu. Once completed reboot your system again. Consider to continue to do you next steps in Safe boot as well. Undo Safe boot Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task . Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type or select msconfig again and Click OK . Within System Configuration select the Tab Startup again. Now uncheck the Checkbox for Safe boot and Click OK . Now reboot. Clean boot (and any unnecessary external devices disconnected from your Computer). Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task . Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig and Click OK . Within System Configuration select the General Tab. Choose Selective startup and then uncheck the Checkbox for Load Startup items . Select the Services tab. Here check the ' Hide all Microsoft services ' Checkbox. Write down which of the remaining are Active . After that click on the Disable all button (now no of the non-Microsoft services here are disruptive) or uncheck the ones that are undesired. Now click on Apply and Click OK . Now reboot (to Clean boot). Once completed reboot your system again or consider to continue to do some next step(s) in Clean boot as well. Undo Clean boot Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task . Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig (or select msconfig again from the Dropdown list) and Click OK . Within System Configuration select the General Tab. Choose Selective startup and then put a check in the Checkbox for Load Startup items . Select the Services tab. Here check the ' Hide all Microsoft services ' Checkbox. After that put a check in the Checkbox for the ones for which you wrote down that they were Active ( or if most were Active you can first click on the Enable all button and then uncheck the others again). Now click on Apply and Click OK . Now reboot. Make use of a Trick if you don't have enough experience or still have problems (as a last resort!) First check if there is a easily recognizable residu of your Antivirus. Browse to C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files\Common Files to look for the folder you can easily recognize. (In some cases maybe C:\Program Files (x86) and C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files also.) Right-Click and rename it (put a - or x at the beginning of its name). If the problem was originated here it can at least no longer be found and be started/become Active again later. IMPORTANT! If you use the Uninstall Utility later after this it will not find it either and it will not work!) Remove manually from Registry (Be careful with this! Making errors/wrong changes in the Registry is dangerous!) As a last resort Remove manually at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ IMPORTANT! If you use the Uninstall Utility later after this it will not find it either and it will not work!) (...) P.S. More edited later again into my contribution on page 14 .

Windows 10 April 2018 Update may boot to a “Choose your keyboard layout” screen or to a blank screen with a Recycle Bin

Anonymous

On a system with Avast antivirus installed, when upgrading to Windows 10, version 1803, Windows automatically restarts and one of these two conditions might be experienced:

The upgrade appears to complete, but after signing in, you observe a blank screen with only a Recycle Bin and a taskbar. The mouse cursor is present, but the Start menu may not function. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del runs the Task Manager, but the Task Manager may not be helpful.
During the upgrade, Windows restarts to a screen that prompts you to “Choose your keyboard layout”. From there, troubleshooting options can be selected, but none of them appear to resolve the issue. For example, if Windows Rollback is selected, the entire process repeats.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Updated (5/25/18):

In cooperation with Avast, Microsoft has identified an element of the Avast Behavior Shield that conflicts with the April 2018 Update, and that may result in this experience. Avast has released an update to prevent this issue from occurring. Once you’ve restored your system, make sure your Avast antivirus is up-to-date.

You can use one of the following methods to restore Windows. If your system currently boots to the Choose your keyboard layout screen, please try Method 1 first. Otherwise, skip to Method 2, which is a variation of a solution posted on the Avast forums.

Method 1: Use Command Prompt to repair Windows Rollback

At the “Choose your keyboard layout” screen, select a keyboard (such as US).
At the “Choose an option screen”, verify that the top left tile reads “Continue – Exit and continue to Windows Rollback”. If this is not the case, please do not proceed further and use Method 2 instead.
Select Troubleshoot.
Select Command Prompt.
In the cmd.exe window, type bcdedit and press Enter.
There should be 4 entries displayed. Ignore the first entry, called {bootmgr}. The next entries should all have an attribute called “device” or “bootstatdevice”, which will have a value similar to partition=E:
In the cmd.exe window, switch to the drive letter you noted in the previous step. In this example, you would type E: and press Enter**.**
Type the following command and then press Enter:

copy \Windows.old\Windows\System32\OOBE\SetupPlatform\SetupPlatform.exe $WINDOWS.~BT\Sources

9. When completed, you should see the output, “1 file(s) copied”. If you see any other output, please do not proceed further and instead use Method 2

In the cmd.exe window, type exit and press Enter. This should return you to the Choose an option screen.

11. Select Continue – Exit and continue to Windows Rollback.

12. Your device should restart and Windows Rollback should then successfully restore your system to the previous version of Windows. Once you are successfully restored, Microsoft recommends that you do not attempt to manually install the April Update – please wait until Windows notifies you that the update is ready for your device.

Method 2: Perform an in-place upgrade

To restore your system, you will need:

A blank USB drive with at least 8 GB of disk space
Another working Windows PC that you can use briefly (for example, a 2^nd^ computer in your home, a friend’s computer, or one at a library or print shop)

On a working PC, go to the Microsoft software download website.
Download the media creation tool and then run it.
Select Create installation media for another PC.
Choose a language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit).
Follow the steps to create installation media on your USB drive, and then select Finish.
On the computer that is experiencing the problem, use the power button to restart until it boots to the blue recovery screens. (You do not need to boot to the USB drive you just made.)
At the Choose your keyboard layout screen, choose your keyboard layout (e.g., US).
At the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot.
Select Command Prompt.
In the cmd.exe window, type C: and press Enter. (If Windows is saved to a drive other than the C: drive, type the appropriate drive letter.)
Type the following command and press Enter. This command renames the Windows.old folder to protect your personal files from being overwritten in certain scenarios.

Ren Windows.old Windows.old.bak

12. In the cmd.exe window, type exit and press Enter. This should return you to the Choose an option screen.

13. Select Use another operating system.

14. Select the second option, “Windows 10 on volume X”, where “X” will be a number.

15. Wait for Windows to load the desktop. (If necessary, enter your password to sign in.) You may have to wait a long time for the desktop to appear while the “update” gets ready.

16. Once the desktop attempts to load, close any error messages that appear (such as “C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop is unavailable”).

17. Right-click any blank area on the taskbar, and then select Task Manager.

18. If necessary, select More details, so that you can see the Menu bar.

19. Select File, then Run new task.

20. In the dialog box that appears, check the box for Create this task with administrator privileges.

21. Select Browse…

22. Insert the USB drive you used to create installation media on the working computer. Navigate to your USB drive and select setup.exe.

23. Run the setup.exe file and follow the steps to “upgrade” Windows. Uncheck the boxes for “check for new updates” and “help make this version better”. If you are asked what you want to keep, make sure you tell it to keep everything!

24. Setup may take some time to run. Once completed, your system should be restored and fully up-to-date. You may need to sign in again to your Microsoft Account.

25. If you lost any personal files during the upgrade process, you can retrieve your files from the Windows.old.bak folder you created in step 11. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows.old.bak. Select the Users folder, and then your user account name. Open the folders that contain the files you want to retrieve and copy/paste the files into a desired location.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Here's what I did to fix my husband's laptop:

There are two methods to fix this update problem that are recommended by Avast and Microsoft: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...a-choose/8ff0d933-8819-4945-9f0c-17ac854400e2. The first tells you to do a rollback, the second suggests an in-place upgrade. Both stink if you can't reach the command prompt, which I couldn't because I was only offered the suggestion of logging into my account which wouldn't accept the password, despite the fact that it was correct.

Now the steps that I followed that ultimately end up working (yay!). I started using Microsoft's steps until they didn't work anymore.

From "them" - To restore your system, you will need:

A blank USB drive with at least 8 GB of disk space
Another working Windows PC that you can use briefly (for example, a 2nd computer in your home, a friend’s computer, or one at a library or print shop)

On a working PC, go to the Microsoft software download website.
Download the media creation tool and then run it. (be sure to format the USB drive first or this will fail, and be prepared for this to take awhile)
Select Create installation media for another PC.
Choose a language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit). (if you have a newer laptop it's probably 64 bit)
Follow the steps to create installation media on your USB drive, and then select Finish.
Now from here on out this is what I did: Get your wrecked laptop to the Choose An Option screen then choose "Use a device"
On the next screen I chose EFI USB Device
It then got my USB blinking and popped up a window saying "It looks like you started an upgrade and booted from installation media. if you want to continue with the upgrade, remove the media from your PC and click Yes. if you want to perform a clean installation instead click NO."
I chose No and it got me to a Windows popup asking for language, time & currency, & keyboard method. I clicked Next and the next window showed "Install now." Repair your computer is an option at the bottom, but it just goes to those wonderful options that we've all been seeing that don't work so don't bother pressing that.
I pressed Install Now and it wanted to know where to install. I chose the first, highlighted, partition option.
At this point it started rolling. I may have had something asking if I wanted to overwrite or upgrade or something. There was an option to either upgrade or to do a custom installation. I THINK I did the custom installation. All files were saved to OneDrive in the first place, so we weren't worried about losing stuff.
Be ready with a new Windows password. We went to a functioning computer and did the "forgot password" link for Windows so that we would be confident that we were using the right password.
After installation Cortana appeared with her slew of questions and at this point you will need to log into Windows. This is where it pays to be ready with the password because we ran out to get a new one and then the computer went black aside from the pointer. I had to pull the power plug while holding the power button to totally shut down (just holding the button until shut down still produced the same black screen upon startup). After the "real" power down it returned back to Cortana when it restarted.

I may be a little off on those bottom 4 or so steps, but basically you are using your flash drive to install Windows again. You'll be wiping everything but at least it gets working again. To be honest, I was very surprised that using the USB actually worked.

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305 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-06-14T23:49:28+00:00

In other news ... Dell says they'll help me fix the problem for $89. If I go this route, it will have cost me nearly $600 and a month without my computer to fix the problem Microsoft caused.

Thanks, Microsoft. The least you could do is fire the so-called engineers who inflicted this monumental **** on your customers, AND ESPECIALLY their managers up to the level of Vice President. This branch of the organization is sick, and needs to be lopped off.
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Anonymous

2018-06-14T23:26:13+00:00

That sounds about like my case. I've been without my computer since mid-May as well.

The differences are, I can't stand spending hours on the phone with tech support, so I am waiting for Microsoft to publish a solution, and I also can't stand not knowing if my files are safe, so i spent nearly $500 on a data recovery service.

Microsoft totally screwed me & apparently many others with this update. At this point, I just want a clean install of Win 10 without having to pay for it. And they won't even tell me how to do that!
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Anonymous

2018-06-14T22:55:28+00:00

Hi,

It can be frustrating when you are locked out of your files so long. I started following this and I decided to edit more and more tips in my initial contribution on page 14. I'll give a few examples below. You should read them in context though. My priority with coming up with new tips is with saving (or not losing) your data/files.

Good luck!

Kind regards,

BartDee. (I am Dutch.)

GENERAL EXAMPLES

(...)

When you choose a Custom install or Upgrade, it will move your current Windows installation to the folder called Windows.old where you can recover your files later. (This is the main topic I am trying to help with here; if you did it again the content could get overwritten, but there may also be some doubt about it backing up like it was supposed to do the previous time.)

If you need to backup things to feel safe and your Computer boots into the Desktop and you have storage available you can make handy use of a Task manager trick.

Right-click the blank area on the Taskbar, and then select Task Manager. If this does not work press Ctrl + Alt + Del to select Task Manager. Or try Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager directly. If necessary, click More details, so that you can see the Menu bar at the top. Select File at the top, then Run new task (don't forget to check the Administrative privileges Checkbox). Select Browse... You now have access to some of the Explorer functionality. Select 'All files *.*' from the drop down list above the buttons at the right. Do not use the buttons. Use the left pane to select folders and the right pane to select files, like in normal Windows Explorer. You can locate files you want to backup (in Windows.old etc**.**). Select them, Right-click and Copy, browse further to your storage, Right-click and Save. You will not see the Progress window but you will notice when the job is done. The screen may appear frozen but please be patient. You can compare the copied result later. Maybe on an other Computer.

You might consider to make an extra copy in an other folder if you still feel insecure. Do this to at least an other partition if you can (but an other disk or other external storage preferably of course).

===

! IMPORTANT ! With Method 2 Step 21 you should ALWAYS VERIFY Windows.old.bak BECAUSE IN YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION YOU MIGHT SEEM TO HAVE DONE THIS CORRECT BUT ON THE WRONG PARTITION IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE Windows INSTALLMENT!

This is also your LAST CHANCE TO V****ERIFY if the CONTENTS ITSELF are really here if you did not do that already with one of the other tips.

If you have only ONE Windows INSTALLMENT the drive letter is most likely to be D or C (the latter is a scenario where your System boots with and Windows operates from the same partition).

Do not confuse this 'System' drive letter with the drive letter that you normally see in Windows Explorer they are not automatically the same.

With Method 1 Step 6 you do not have to see four entries (this example is obviously based on someones personal installments). You should see Windows Boot Manager with the mentioned identifier {bootmgr} and at least one other entry of Windows Boot Loader with an identifier with a value. If you see only one entry of Windows Boot Loader then you should use the drive letter that you see with device there (this is with a value similar to partition=C:). If you see moreentries of Windows Boot Loader and you normally do not manually select which Windows installment to start and you know that you did not make that manual choice with the Windows that went wrong now also, it automatically has to be the one that has the value {default} also. Please do verify this yourself first because there could be some kind of error/corruption that you are missing? If you know that you have only one Windows installment it should be simplest. If you know that you have more, one question that you could always ask yourself is if you changed it just now in your latest Session? (With System configuration in Control Panel for example?)

The whole text from copy to Sources is on one line. Make sure that you used the letters OO in OOBE (this stands for OutOfBoxExperience).

And that you used a space between copy and the next \ and between SetupPlatform.exe and the next \ also.

If you still feel insecure about your result for the here proposed Method 1 Step 8 (SetupPlatform.exe) or Method 2 Step 11 (Windows.old) you might consider to check or do this with the Task manager trick. (So to double-check the contents or change to be secure.)

===

SOME OF THE LATEST I'M ADDING ABOUT ANTIVIRUS ETC.

(...)

This is a link to the Avast website you might want to visit first (for now) to make your informed decisions (**https://www.avast.com/).

Their support page (https://support.avast.com/en-us/) and their forum (https://forum.avast.com/) with the article mentioned just above Method 1 for your convenience (https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=219218.msg1463080#msg1463080).

The article says that they got the original instructions from a Computer repair shop. It also states 'In cooperation with Microsoft we have identified an element of the latest Windows 10 1803 update that is incompatible with the Avast Behavior Shield, causing the aforementioned update to fail in some instances (...)'. Logic clearly dictates that this could effect the next Upgrade attempt as well. It also suggest that somehow updating Avast or temporarily removing Avast could help prevent it causing the update to fail again.

If you choose to uninstall Avast you should run their Uninstall Utility (https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/Uninstall-Antivirus-Utility). Download this first to a secure location.

To uninstall Avast you should do this in Safe boot (and disconnected from the internet). Several restarts may be required?

To uninstall an Antivirus you are normally advised to do so in the 'Safe boot'. Often there is a special Uninstall utility to do this on the Antivirus Support website.

Sometimes there are still leftovers that remain active almost unnoticed (usually a 'Service' or 'Run' entry for Startup items in the Registry). To uninstall it, it is best to do so in the 'Clean Boot'.

The unwanted Services are sometimes recognizable by their name in Task Manager or Services Tab in msconfig. It can also be that the description is clear enough (the service, the manufacturer). If you have enough experience, you can now remove the launcher from Run. (Be careful with this! Making errors/wrong changes in the Registry is dangerous!) If you don't have enough experience to make changes or are too unsure, you could also use a trick (for now) in the 'Clean boot'.

Safe boot (and disconnected from the internet).

Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task. Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig and Click OK.

Within System Configuration select the Tab Startup. Put a check in the Checkbox for Safe boot and Click OK. Now reboot (to Safe boot).

Right-Click the downloaded Avast Uninstall Antivirus Utility (avastclear.exe), and select Run as administrator from the Context Menu.

Once completed reboot your system again. Consider to continue to do you next steps in Safe boot as well.

Undo Safe boot

Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task. Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type or select msconfig again and Click OK.

Within System Configuration select the Tab Startup again. Now uncheck the Checkbox for Safe boot and Click OK. Now reboot.

Clean boot (and any unnecessary external devices disconnected from your Computer).

Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task. Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig and Click OK.

Within System Configuration select the General Tab. Choose Selective startup and then uncheck the Checkbox for Load Startup items.

Select the Services tab. Here check the 'Hide all Microsoft services' Checkbox. Write down which of the remaining are Active. After that click on the Disable all button (now no of the non-Microsoft services here are disruptive) or uncheck the ones that are undesired.

Now click on Apply and Click OK. Now reboot (to Clean boot).

Once completed reboot your system again or consider to continue to do some next step(s) in Clean boot as well.

Undo Clean boot

Open Task Manager and Select File at the top, then Run new task. Put a check in the Administrative privileges Checkbox. Type: msconfig (or select msconfig again from the Dropdown list) and Click OK.

Within System Configuration select the General Tab. Choose Selective startup and then put a check in the Checkbox for Load Startup items.

Select the Services tab. Here check the 'Hide all Microsoft services' Checkbox. After that put a check in the Checkbox for the ones for which you wrote down that they were Active (or if most were Active you can first click on the Enable all button and then uncheck the others again).

Now click on Apply and Click OK. Now reboot.

Make use of a Trick if you don't have enough experience or still have problems (as a last resort!)

First check if there is a easily recognizable residu of your Antivirus.

Browse to C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files\Common Files to look for the folder you can easily recognize.

(In some cases maybe C:\Program Files (x86) and C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files also.)

Right-Click and rename it (put a - or x at the beginning of its name). If the problem was originated here it can at least no longer be found and be started/become Active again later.

IMPORTANT! If you use the Uninstall Utility later after this it will not find it either and it will not work!)

Remove manually from Registry (Be careful with this! Making errors/wrong changes in the Registry is dangerous!)

As a last resort Remove manually at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

IMPORTANT! If you use the Uninstall Utility later after this it will not find it either and it will not work!)

(...)

P.S. More edited later again into my contribution onpage 14.
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