strange issues after performing system cleaning

Question

strange issues after performing system cleaning

ChrisSolomon 36

a week or two ago i performed some system maintence on my system, which i had not done lately. this mainly consisted of cleaning out temporary files and so on. I DID NOT use any weird or third party tool or utilities. i used only what was included with windows and the Microsoft PC Manager app. everything went well, but the windows shell start acting wonky after i used the disk cleanup app. i restarted, and found the start menu, widgets panel and taskbar had reverted to their un-updated state. i of course ran sfc and dism, but no errors were found. i eventually ended up using the vivetool to turn that stuff back on. but following that, Windows started trying to either do a repair install or just download the 25h2 update (im not sure which is the case). if windows wanted to repair itself, then that's fine, great even. the problem is that the download via windows update titled 'Windows 11, 25H2' keeps failing. However, all other updates are successfully getting installed. this includes the LCU updates. i tried to initiate a repair using windows update using 'settings>system>recovery' but the option 'fix problems using windows updates' is greyed out and says 'this option is currently unavailable'. there are times that the download seems to successfully complete in windows updates, but following a restart, it just tries to download the same thing all over again. in the last few days the update has been erroring out, with several different error codes. the last two error codes were '0x80070057' and '0x800706ba'. since other updates seem to be able to install, i don't think this is a normal os corruption issue. especially with the way the issue was triggered.

i am not sure how to proceed to clear the issue i am currently having. advice other than using the windows update troubleshooter (you can't its broken for everyone om windows 11) or doing a clean install would be most helpful. i could do a repair install using an .iso, i suppose, but my main concern is that that will just return my system to the state it was before i did my maintenance, and the next time i do maintenance, i will just end up in the same situation as i am in now.

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3 answers

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Answer 1

seems my issues were largely due to a failed store migration during the upgrade from 24H2 to 25H2. this was due to a rare bug during the upgrade process. I have since fixed hat issue as well as all the other issues that cropped up and compounded as a result of the migration failure. I give big props to the people at the CoPilot team. Copilot was able to not only correctly diagnose the issue but, also permanently fix the issue. the migration failure was something that could not be fixed by simply doing a repair install, as the migration ONLY occurs during the upgrade from 24H2 to 25H2. since that upgrade had already occurred, the issue was unresolvable by normal methods. But CoPilot was able to guide me through it all and now my system runs much better. And all the various updates are installing without any issues.

Answer 2

CrazyKats 19,245 Volunteer Moderator

Hi,

Just out today for Patch Tues. is 26200.7462.

I hope you have better luck with that update.

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Answer 3

CrazyKats 19,245 Volunteer Moderator

Hi,

Exactly what build are you on?

Use WIN+R, type winver for the build #.

Is your PC Widows 11 compatible?

Run: https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp

It sounds like a clean install would be your

best bet.

Will await your reply.

ChrisSolomon 36 Reputation points

2025-12-09T23:19:18.9466667+00:00

i was on windows 11 Pro 25h2 (build 26200.72xx) on release preview track. and yes, my system is Windows 11 Compatible. the only thing it doesn't support is DX 12 ultimate and of course it doesn't have an NPU so most of the AI features don't work either.

windows did eventually successfully download the windows setup files, and even got to the second stage of the install (the part where setup runs while it shows the windows boot screen). but it aborted at some point and gave off an error. i unfortunately no longer have a copy of the error code, but when i looked it up, according to Microsoft it meant that setup was aborted because another setup was already in progress. i got back into windows only to discover that my registration in windows for the insider program was now gone. i signed back in and chose the release preview track again. and rebooted when asked. at this point, windows was still trying to reinstall itself via Windows update. i looked at the setup logs generated and discovered that the possible cause of the issue was old, outdated files in "C:$Windows.~BT". it looked like the files were mostly over a year old. so i deleted the files along with "C:$GetCurrent" and rebooted yet again. at that point it was getting late, so i logged back in and brought up windows update and just left my system to do it's thing overnight. I don't actually know if it tried to reinstall windows again, but when i came back the next day, WU had downloaded the newly released LCU bringing the build to 26200.7309. after i allowed the system to reboot like it wanted to, i checked update again, and it had stopped trying to download windows setup files. also, it took a couple of days, but the repair using windows update in settings>system>recovery was now available. i am guessing what i was experiencing was perhaps an edge case bug in the previous build. the updated GUI features that had disappeared before are now back.

P.S. for whatever reason, the 'backslash' when listing the path of the directories in the text above keeps getting removed as soon as i tell the post to save. so, I AM typing the path correctly, but this site is altering what i type. i'm not sure why it's doing that, because as seen below, its not altering the three examples i typed below.

A:\

B:\

C:\