Windows 10 1803 Spring Update.....Marvelous!

[tropo]

9 hours ago, Pib said:

 

There have been two major updates....KB4103721 (OS Build 17134.48) released on 8 May and KB4100403 (OS Build 17134.81) released on 23 May.   This MS web page will show you the latest releases for all versions.   Appears you are missing the 23 May update.

 

 Both my laptops upgraded to the later/latest build of 17134.81.....see below snapshot.

 

 

1

I spoke too soon. Only one of my 4 Windows 10 computers has found the new update from May 23....,even if I manually search for updates. They're in no hurry to distribute it.

[Pib]

Maybe that Windows Update Group Policy setting you are using is confusing the Windows update process.   Or maybe some of your machines are not being offered the update due to hardware like one of the specific  "SSD" models talked about in the update. 

 

See the known issues with the update at the MS weblink below....I also included a partial quote snapshot.  In one case MS recommends waiting till the "June" Update Tuesday to get ver 1803. 

 

I like MS weasel wording where they recommend a person wait til X-date to upgrade to 1803 in some fine print, but unfortunately their warning comes after-the-fact....after the damage has been done to some folks (i.e, black or blue screens of death).

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4100403/windows-10-update-kb4100403

 

 

 

[billd766]

11 hours ago, tropo said:

This should help:

 

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/106260-download-install-windows-update-microsoft-update-catalog.html

 

or more directly here:

 

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4100403

 

Thank you for the links.

 

The first link is more useful as it is in English. The second is in Thai.

 

I will try the first on my old laptop over the weekend and see how it goes.

 

If that works I will do the other 2 next week when the kids are at school.

[Pib]

Well, I just had a blue screen of death after upgrading to 1803 yesterday.   It worked fine last night....and this morning....left for a couple of hours this morning to buy some groceries...left the laptop on and it was in hibernation (I have it set to hybernate after 90 minutes) when I got back.   Pressed power button to wake it up and as waking up I got a blue screen with some words saying Windows was having problems...it rebooted into the Windows recovery screen....I clicked a few things...it rebooted again and now its working again.  

 

Maybe it now has going into hibernation or sleep problems after upgrading to 1803.  Will do some more testings. 

 

I will now need to check the other laptop for a similar problems...see what happens.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pib

[billd766]

32 minutes ago, Pib said:

Well, I just had a blue screen of death after upgrading to 1803 yesterday.   It worked fine last night....and this morning....left for a couple of hours this morning to buy some groceries...left the laptop on and it was in hibernation (I have it set to hybernate after 90 minutes) when I got back.   Pressed power button to wake it up and as waking up I got a blue screen with some words saying Windows was having problems...it rebooted into the Windows recovery screen....I clicked a few things...it rebooted again and now its working again.  

 

Maybe it now has going into hibernation or sleep problems after upgrading to 1803.  Will do some more testings. 

 

I will now need to check the other laptop for a similar problems...see what happens.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for that information.

 

memo to self. Put Win 10 update on hold for a week.

[Pib]

6 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

Thanks for that information.

 

memo to self. Put Win 10 update on hold for a week.

yea...maybe wait until after the 3d update to 1803 is released in June. 

 

 

[tropo]

2 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

Thank you for the links.

 

The first link is more useful as it is in English. The second is in Thai.

 

I will try the first on my old laptop over the weekend and see how it goes.

 

If that works I will do the other 2 next week when the kids are at school.

The 2nd link shows in English in my browser. I have location off to prevent the browser deciding what language to dish out. I find that quite annoying.

Edited June 1, 2018 by tropo

[tropo]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

Well, I just had a blue screen of death after upgrading to 1803 yesterday.   It worked fine last night....and this morning....left for a couple of hours this morning to buy some groceries...left the laptop on and it was in hibernation (I have it set to hybernate after 90 minutes) when I got back.   Pressed power button to wake it up and as waking up I got a blue screen with some words saying Windows was having problems...it rebooted into the Windows recovery screen....I clicked a few things...it rebooted again and now its working again.  

 

Maybe it now has going into hibernation or sleep problems after upgrading to 1803.  Will do some more testings. 

 

I will now need to check the other laptop for a similar problems...see what happens.

5

I stopped using hibernation a long time ago. What use is it? Save power? I just use sleep. If you turn it off you get a big hunk of hard drive space too because the hibernation file is huge.

[HooHaa]

On 5/1/2018 at 3:38 AM, Halfaboy said:

Same here. Started up and download began. Took something like 40 minutes (probably slower connection).

To be honest, I did not notice any difference so far.

how very delightful, i particularly love it when windows arbitrarily decides to render my laptop useless for an hour  without option or warning.

[Pib]

31 minutes ago, tropo said:

I stopped using hibernation a long time ago. What use is it? Save power? I just use sleep. If you turn it off you get a big hunk of hard drive space too because the hibernation file is huge.

It may not be a hibernation and sleep issue but something else that caused the BSOD like Windows doing some type of background maintenance. 

 

When I left the house I didn't have any programs running... I had just backed out of ThaiVisa...closed the browser....now back to the Windows Start page.   I then leave for a few hours...I didn't force the laptop into sleep or hibernation mode.   Pretty much what I've done many, many times because once I turn my computer on in the morning leave it on until going to bed.

 

The sleep and hibernation time settings are 20 and 90 minutes, respectively.  I was gone for over 90 minutes.  I would have went first into sleep mode and then into hibernation.   

 

Since my earlier post I have forced it into sleep and hibernation numerous times and it has resumed without any BSOD.   Also did several restarts and complete power downs and the computer rebooted OK.  

 

I also changed the display off, sleep, and hibernation minutes settings to 1, 2, and 3 minutes, respectively, to let it go into each state by itself without me forcing it into sleep or hibernation.  Used these low time settings so I could do this quick test.   Once again it resumed OK after that natural sequence of display off, then shortly after that going to sleep, and then shortly after that going into hibernation....then bringing it out of hibernation......no BSOD once resuming. 

 

I'll just have to set back and see if and when the BSOD occurs again...hopefully it will not....time will tell. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pib

[tropo]

6 hours ago, Pib said:

Maybe that Windows Update Group Policy setting you are using is confusing the Windows update process.   Or maybe some of your machines are not being offered the update due to hardware like one of the specific  "SSD" models talked about in the update. 

 

See the known issues with the update at the MS weblink below....I also included a partial quote snapshot.  In one case MS recommends waiting till the "June" Update Tuesday to get ver 1803. 

 

I like MS weasel wording where they recommend a person wait til X-date to upgrade to 1803 in some fine print, but unfortunately their warning comes after-the-fact....after the damage has been done to some folks (i.e, black or blue screens of death).

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4100403/windows-10-update-kb4100403

 

 

 

All my computers are different brands. None have SSD's and all are able to "search for updates". I have my update policy set to 'find updates and ask me if I want to download them' on the 3 machines that can't find it. Maybe that's what's causing the "problem". On the one computer that found it, I have it set to automatically download and install updates with no group policy intevention. I'm not stressed about it, it was just an observation.

[tropo]

16 minutes ago, Pib said:

It may not be a hibernation and sleep issue but something else that caused the BSOD like Windows doing some type of background maintenance. 

 

When I left the house I didn't have any programs running... I had just backed out of ThaiVisa...closed the browser....now back to the Windows Start page.   I then leave for a few hours...I didn't force the laptop into sleep or hibernation mode.   Pretty much what I've done many, many times because once I turn my computer on in the morning leave it on until going to bed.

 

The sleep and hibernation time settings are 20 and 90 minutes, respectively.  I was gone for over 90 minutes.  I would have went first into sleep mode and then into hibernation.   

 

Since my earlier post I have forced it into sleep and hibernation numerous times and it has resumed without any BSOD.   Also did several restarts and complete power downs and the computer rebooted OK.  

 

I also changed the display off, sleep, and hibernation minutes settings to 1, 2, and 3 minutes, respectively, to let it go into each state by itself without me forcing it into sleep or hibernation.  Used these low time settings so I could do this quick test.   Once again it resumed OK after that natural sequence of display off, then shortly after that going to sleep, and then shortly after that going into hibernation....then bringing it out of hibernation......no BSOD once resuming. 

 

I'll just have to set back and see if and when the BSOD occurs again...hopefully it will not....time will tell. 

The very first thing I do when I get a system crash is to check the Event viewer for administrative events for some clues about what may have caused the crash.

[tropo]

56 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

Thanks for that information.

 

memo to self. Put Win 10 update on hold for a week.

In actual fact, feature updates are unnecessary until they stop supporting your current version. In your case, 1709 will be supported until April 9, 2019, which means you'll keep getting regular updates until then. Unless you really want or need some new features on 1803, you don't need it at all. On some older computers, it could be better off leaving well enough alone. For example, did you update from Windows 7 to Windows 8? Or from Windows XP to Visa? I didn't. It wasn't necessary. Many people are still using Windows XP.

[Pib]

15 minutes ago, tropo said:

The very first thing I do when I get a system crash is to check the Event viewer for administrative events for some clues about what may have caused the crash.

 

This was probably the BSOD event since it happened at 12:50pm....after getting back from the grocery run and bringing the laptop out of hibernation/sleep.  The general description or details doesn't say anything really definitive.   The Details tab does do talk some transitions to sleep.

 

[tropo]

2 minutes ago, Pib said:

 

This was probably the BSOD event since it happened at 12:50pm....after getting back from the grocery run and bringing the laptop out of hibernation/sleep.  The general description or details doesn't say anything really definitive.   The Details tab does do talk some transitions to sleep.

 

 

What about the event just prior to the critical error. The critical error: kernel power doesn't give a clue about why it crashed.

[Pib]

3 minutes ago, tropo said:

What about the event just prior to the critical error. The critical error: kernel power doesn't give a clue about why it crashed.

 

The only event prior was approx 3 hours earlier when I was using the laptop this morning with no problems....it's just identified as an Error....not a Critical Error.  Where it talks the shutdown at 9:39am that may have been me putting forcing the computer to sleep, rebooting, restarting, etc., this morning in doing some tests after the 1803 update yesterday.    But I got no Critical Error/BSODs of death at 9:39am or the computer doing weird things....it was working fine....did not notice any problems at all this morning....working fine.  It just when I got back from my grocery run at 12:50pm today and brought the laptop out of sleep/hibernation I got the BSOD/Critical Error in my previous post.

[tropo]

32 minutes ago, Pib said:

 

The only event prior was approx 3 hours earlier when I was using the laptop this morning with no problems....it's just identified as an Error....not a Critical Error.  Where it talks the shutdown at 9:39am that may have been me putting forcing the computer to sleep, rebooting, restarting, etc., this morning in doing some tests after the 1803 update yesterday.    But I got no Critical Error/BSODs of death at 9:39am or the computer doing weird things....it was working fine....did not notice any problems at all this morning....working fine.  It just when I got back from my grocery run at 12:50pm today and brought the laptop out of sleep/hibernation I got the BSOD/Critical Error in my previous post.

 

3

I've was getting mysterious crashes on one of my computers before I did a full PC reset last month. Mostly I can't find the reason on the Event Viewer anyway, but sometimes I get a clue. I know Skype was involved with some of them. Not the Skype app, but desktop Skype. In your case, it will remain mysterious for the time being LOL

[Pib]

26 minutes ago, tropo said:

I've was getting mysterious crashes on one of my computers before I did a full PC reset last month. Mostly I can't find the reason on the Event Viewer anyway, but sometimes I get a clue. I know Skype was involved with some of them. Not the Skype app, but desktop Skype. In your case, it will remain mysterious for the time being LOL

In late Dec 17 when still on 1709 I had to do a reset of both my laptops because they developed a problem where "intermittently" when during  a "Restart" they couldn't find the boot drive....BSOD....had to go into recovery mode...had to revert to a Restore Point to get them going again.   The problem started in early Dec....months after upgrade to 1709....it seemed to happen after a monthly  cumulative update.   Not malware related as I run Norton 360 on both laptops....also did multiple malware scan with Malwarebytes.  I even online chatted with MS Support....they just said a Reset would fix my problem....I expect they give that answer for 9 out of 10 problems.

 

Well, as you know, a Reset is another word for a reinstall of Win 10 from the image on your drive and it removes many of your apps during the reinstall.    After 3 to 4 weeks of trying to fix this problem on both laptops, troubleshooting to no end, I gave up and did a Reset along with reloading most of the apps removed.  It fixed the problem on both laptops...both were running fine with 1709 since late Dec 17.

 

I hadn't needed to do a Reset/reinstall of Windows on a computer having operating system problems probably for around 10 years. Just something with south with 1709 on both computers in early Dec. And one of the computers only gets turns on a few hours per month to get updates and do a few other things....it's my backup computer.

 

But now both are on 1803 as of yesterday so I'll have to wait and see what surprises may arise.   It was nice getting thru upgrade to 1803 yesterday without any apparent problems.  Will now just need to see if problems appear as I use them over the coming days/weeks/etc.   Maybe my BSOD today is a one-time event related to the upgrade to 1803 and maybe when Windows went into the recovery screen it was also able to fix/clear the problem and it will not come back---hopeful thinking.  Time will tell.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pib

[billd766]

4 hours ago, Pib said:

yea...maybe wait until after the 3d update to 1803 is released in June. 

 

 

 

OK Thanks

 

3 hours ago, tropo said:

The 2nd link shows in English in my browser. I have location off to prevent the browser deciding what language to dish out. I find that quite annoying.

 

I never thought about that.

[JetsetBkk]

6 hours ago, Pib said:

yea...maybe wait until after the 3d update to 1803 is released in June.

 

I deferred my updates until June 6th. I'll be doing a system image on all machines on the 4th.

 

Update: I can now defer until 7th July. Went to Advanced Windows Update options and clicked on Defer.

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by JetsetBkk

[Pib]

26 minutes ago, JetsetBkk said:

I deferred my updates until June 6th. I'll be doing a system image on all machines on the 4th.

 

Update: I can now defer until 7th July. Went to Advanced Windows Update options and clicked on Defer.

 

If you have Win 10 Pro in the Windows Update Advanced Options you can defer Features updates (i.e., such as 1803) up to 365 days and Quality updates up to 30 days.   This would allow you to go beyond 6 June in case the 3rd 1803 update isn't out by then.   

 

Since Patch Tuesday releases is usually the second Tuesday of each month at 10am U.S. west coast time...which is midnight Thailand time...the start of 13 Jun in Thailand....you might want to wait until at least 13 Jun.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by Pib

[billd766]

2 hours ago, JetsetBkk said:

I deferred my updates until June 6th. I'll be doing a system image on all machines on the 4th.

 

Update: I can now defer until 7th July. Went to Advanced Windows Update options and clicked on Defer.

 

 

Thanks for that info.

 

I have just done the same thing.

[jenny2017]

On 5/31/2018 at 6:23 PM, Pib said:

I updated both of my Lenovo laptops from version 1709 to 1803 today....both running Win 10 Pro.  As mentioned in my earlier posts I had activated the updates 35 day pause setting and also the settings to delay features and quality updates.    These update pause/delay settings would have prevented the 1803 update well into June if desired.  I wanted to let 1803 mature a little....get few updates under it belt.   

 

Since 1803 has rec'd two updates in May to fix problems some people had experienced I figure I would try it on my secondary Lenovo first.  Went fine....took a total of approx one hour and ten minutes.  Played with it for a few hours....couldn't find any problems so I decided to update my primary Lenovo.  That update went fine also....once again took approx one hour and ten minutes.  Of course before doing the update I did image backups with Macrium Reflect Free just in case things didn't go well...but fortunately they did go well.

 

On one of the laptops the System Protection (Restore Point stuff) was turned off after the upgrade...so I turned that back on and created a Restore Point.  The other laptop still had System Protection turned on after the upgrade and had created a Restore Point.  This System Protection being turned off in some cases during an upgrade on some computers is not new or Win 10 specific....that problem also existed on Win 8 and Win 7 also.

 

Good to go with 1803....no issues/problems so far.

Great post, but in 95 % of all updates will the System Restore Point be gone.

 

   And sometimes you've got to switch your drive C on to be able to create a Restore point.

 

   

[jenny2017]

6 hours ago, Pib said:

In late Dec 17 when still on 1709 I had to do a reset of both my laptops because they developed a problem where "intermittently" when during  a "Restart" they couldn't find the boot drive....BSOD....had to go into recovery mode...had to revert to a Restore Point to get them going again.   The problem started in early Dec....months after upgrade to 1709....it seemed to happen after a monthly  cumulative update.   Not malware related as I run Norton 360 on both laptops....also did multiple malware scan with Malwarebytes.  I even online chatted with MS Support....they just said a Reset would fix my problem....I expect they give that answer for 9 out of 10 problems.

 

Well, as you know, a Reset is another word for a reinstall of Win 10 from the image on your drive and it removes many of your apps during the reinstall.    After 3 to 4 weeks of trying to fix this problem on both laptops, troubleshooting to no end, I gave up and did a Reset along with reloading most of the apps removed.  It fixed the problem on both laptops...both were running fine with 1709 since late Dec 17.

 

I hadn't needed to do a Reset/reinstall of Windows on a computer having operating system problems probably for around 10 years. Just something with south with 1709 on both computers in early Dec. And one of the computers only gets turns on a few hours per month to get updates and do a few other things....it's my backup computer.

 

But now both are on 1803 as of yesterday so I'll have to wait and see what surprises may arise.   It was nice getting thru upgrade to 1803 yesterday without any apparent problems.  Will now just need to see if problems appear as I use them over the coming days/weeks/etc.   Maybe my BSOD today is a one-time event related to the upgrade to 1803 and maybe when Windows went into the recovery screen it was also able to fix/clear the problem and it will not come back---hopeful thinking.  Time will tell.

 

 

5

In late Dec 17 when still on 1709 I had to do a reset of both my laptops because they developed a problem where "intermittently" when during  a "Restart" they couldn't find the boot drive

 

   I've had similar problems with a couple of PC's. The easiest solution is to press F 12. or whatever get's you into the Boot menu, then select the hard drive, (  usually ST.....) where your OP is installed and it usually works and boots up perfectly. 

 

   That seems to be a problem that Windows just can't find the device to boot from. 

[tropo]

10 hours ago, HooHaa said:

how very delightful, i particularly love it when windows arbitrarily decides to render my laptop useless for an hour  without option or warning.

Yes, I hate that. That's one of the reasons why I don't like to receive automatic dates. If something goes seriously wrong, which is quite possible and has happened to me when updating, your computer may not reboot and require a clean install in the worst case scenario. You DON'T want to be doing feature updates or big cumulative updates if you have serious work to complete on your computer. I make system images on Macrium before any major update... that way I'm only about 15 - 30 minutes away from a working computer if something goes wrong.

 

May I recommend you set update policy in the Group Policy Editor to "tell me if downloads are available" and then you choose if you want them and when. There is not a Group Policy Editor in the Home Edition, but you can download it and install it... Isn't that insane?

 

Here's how to get there if you're interested in doing this:

 

Start > Seach box - enter "Edit Group Policy" > open it> computer configuration> Administrative Templates> Windows components> click on "Windows Update" > double click "Configure Automatic Updates" > select "enable" and select option 2 in drop down box.

 

2 = Notify before downloading and installing any updates.

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by tropo

[tropo]

1 hour ago, jenny2017 said:

Great post, but in 95 % of all updates will the System Restore Point be gone.

 

   And sometimes you've got to switch your drive C on to be able to create a Restore point.

 

   

You can never system restore to a previous feature update, but I never use system restore anyway. If you check update history you'll notice all previous updates are gone and you're starting a clean slate. It's nearly the equivalent of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 or either to Windows 10. It's the new way and will save people from endlessly paying for operating system upgrades (I hope). You can revert back to your older version though as a recovery option, but not through system restore. I delete the old windows folders anyway and do it through Macrium image restore.

[tropo]

8 hours ago, Pib said:

In late Dec 17 when still on 1709 I had to do a reset of both my laptops because they developed a problem where "intermittently" when during  a "Restart" they couldn't find the boot drive....BSOD....had to go into recovery mode...had to revert to a Restore Point to get them going again.   The problem started in early Dec....months after upgrade to 1709....it seemed to happen after a monthly  cumulative update.   Not malware related as I run Norton 360 on both laptops....also did multiple malware scan with Malwarebytes.  I even online chatted with MS Support....they just said a Reset would fix my problem....I expect they give that answer for 9 out of 10 problems.

 

Well, as you know, a Reset is another word for a reinstall of Win 10 from the image on your drive and it removes many of your apps during the reinstall.    After 3 to 4 weeks of trying to fix this problem on both laptops, troubleshooting to no end, I gave up and did a Reset along with reloading most of the apps removed.  It fixed the problem on both laptops...both were running fine with 1709 since late Dec 17.

 

I hadn't needed to do a Reset/reinstall of Windows on a computer having operating system problems probably for around 10 years. Just something with south with 1709 on both computers in early Dec. And one of the computers only gets turns on a few hours per month to get updates and do a few other things....it's my backup computer.

 

But now both are on 1803 as of yesterday so I'll have to wait and see what surprises may arise.   It was nice getting thru upgrade to 1803 yesterday without any apparent problems.  Will now just need to see if problems appear as I use them over the coming days/weeks/etc.   Maybe my BSOD today is a one-time event related to the upgrade to 1803 and maybe when Windows went into the recovery screen it was also able to fix/clear the problem and it will not come back---hopeful thinking.  Time will tell.

 

 

This is what happened yesterday when I downloaded the new cumulative updates on my PC. My UPS needs replacing and it doesn't hold charge. I got to the restart computer point, restarted it, and during the restart, no kidding, there was a minor (very minor) power fluctuation to my apartment that didn't even restart my modem, but interfered with my PC restart. How's that for timing! As a result, the install failed. I downloaded it again and reinstalled it. I'm really getting tired of paying for UPS's that fail in less than a year. I buy supposedly good brands too.

 

Today I used Microsoft Edge to access a certain website (that doesn't work on Chrome). 3 tabs were opened and the most unusual lock-up occurred. The mouse was still working. I could move and close Chrome windows, but Edge was totally locked up. I couldn't access the task manager and even the start power didn't work - I had to close it down by hard pressing the main power button. That's Microsoft's own program LOL. You'd think at least that would be foolproof.

[Pib]

9 hours ago, jenny2017 said:

Great post, but in 95 % of all updates will the System Restore Point be gone.

 

   And sometimes you've got to switch your drive C on to be able to create a Restore point.

   

After a major update like from 1709 to 1803 your previous System Restore points will indeed be wiped out during that upgrade and if your System Protection was not turned off by the upgrade during that upgrade process you will have one Restore Point named something along the lines of Critical Update.    If the upgrade turned your system protection off then you'll have no restore points immediately after the major upgrade.   

 

As mentioned earlier when I upgraded my two laptops a few days ago, both of which had System Protection turned on, and I even periodically created a manual initiated restore point, one laptop had System Protection still turned on and that one Critical Update restore point.  And the other laptop had System Restore Point turned off and no restore point created....I turned System Protection back on and  manually created a restore point.

 

Yes, a Restore Point if created right after a major upgrade may be of little use/not allow rollback if using the restore point.   But I'm pretty sure the Rollback option in Windows uses different files/data to rollback....uses files/data/info stored in the Windows.old folder not files/data created by a Restore Point.

 

What I really meant where Restore Points do save the day is those cases not related to a major operating system upgrade but in those cases where you add some new software (or the software updates) to your computer that messes things up.  Or you do some other tinkering like messing with the registry that messes things up.   Or in cases like where 1709 would intermittently give me a BSOD/can't find the boot drive.  In those cases using a System Restore point often saves your bacon...gets the computer back to the previous working fine state.    

 

In the case back in Dec when 1709 started causing me grief/the Restart problem, I'm pretty sure the cause of that was if I did a Restart while the Windows Module Installer Worker was running in accomplishing routine Windows maintenance tasks the the Worker "would not shutdown normally as it should" causing a registry/drive corruption....the computer had to be restored to a previous point to repair the corruption. 

 

I got to the point before doing a Restart for whatever reason of always opening Task Manager to look at the processes running to make sure the Worker was not running....if the Worker was not running the Restart always occurred successfully.  If the Worker was running when the Restart initiated I got the BSOD/can't find the boot device...went into Windows Recovery to select a Restore Point to get the computer running again.   For around 3 weeks in Dec I must have done this a dozen times between the my two computers...mostly on my primary computer as it use it more.

 

I've also used Restore Points to recover from updated drivers that just didn't work worth a durn on my computers.

 

But sometimes a Restore Point doesn't help....the restore starts...runs for short period....and then comes back with the message of  "So Sorry Charlie, Something Went Wrong...No Can Do Restore Point....Have a Microsoft Day."  That's when you have to do an image restore to get things going again...even if "going again" means reverting back in time to your last image backup which might have been very, very recent or not so recent....but it's sure better than starting from scratch/reinstalling Windows and all your apps.   Preaching to the choir I know.

 

Restore Points are a good thing and they can save your bacon sometimes....fix your problem and not require a backup image reload....and sometimes Restore Points simply give you the Sorry response.   But hey, since they work sometimes and are quick to run, why not use them...have another tool in your toolbox to recover from computer problems.

 

What I do periodically....a couple times per month... is manually created a restore point because Windows only automatically creates a restore point for certain updates it does which isn't often.   But I consider backup images as my primary "save my bacon" tool.

 

 

[jenny2017]

15 hours ago, tropo said:

You can never system restore to a previous feature update, but I never use system restore anyway. If you check update history you'll notice all previous updates are gone and you're starting a clean slate. It's nearly the equivalent of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 or either to Windows 10. It's the new way and will save people from endlessly paying for operating system upgrades (I hope). You can revert back to your older version though as a recovery option, but not through system restore. I delete the old windows folders anyway and do it through Macrium image restore.

I've tried to revert back on a machine with some issues, but it didn't work. And the update was just done, nothing from older setups was deleted. 

[tropo]

8 hours ago, Pib said:

 Restore Points are a good thing and they can save your bacon sometimes....fix your problem and not require a backup image reload....and sometimes Restore Points simply give you the Sorry response.   But hey, since they work sometimes and are quick to run, why not use them...have another tool in your toolbox to recover from computer problems.

 

I'll tell you why I stopped using them. I got the "sorry, no can do - nothing has been changed" message, but things had changed and became even more f***** up than before I attempted the system restore. This happened more than once, so gave up using it. I use a program to update drivers, which has a built-in restore point. If I mess with the registry I make a manual registry backup file. I still keep restore points though - you never know, they may come in useful as a last option.