it has wrecked my system, and of course I cannot stop it from updating, all I can do is keep restoring from restore point then it updates again

starting is safe mode is a hit and miss work around - it doesn't actually start in safe mode when selected but starts correctly - go figure

main problem is the system starts but the desktop and all features are unusable e.g. start button does nothing, programs won't run

I have disabled all startup programs during boot but makes no difference

The update didn't actually work and had to do it manually kb3097617, there were also many updates to office etc so unsure what is actually causing the issues

it is a complete mess, in all the years I used W7 not once did I have issues like this

Above mentioned KB3097617 installed successfully on my Lenovo laptop 15 Oct. But as with all Windows updates, there are always X-percentage of computers an update don't agree with...I've been part of that X-percentage over the years with some updates regardless of Windows version I was using.

Doing some googling on the KB is shows many people are having issues with this particular update. Good luck.

From googling this KB issue most sites/posts first recommend "turning off" your antivirus when installing the update or manually download/install it. Quite a few posts seems to indicate something in the update is blocked by some antivirus programs during install. So, maybe uninstall the update, turn off your anti-viurs, do another Checks for Windows Updates so the update will attempt download/install again. If manually downloading the update be sure to turn off your antivurus during install. If and hopefully it installs, then turn back on your antivirus. Then see how the computer operates. Maybe worth a try.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-to-fix-windows-10-cumulative-update-kb3097617-installation-issues-494581.shtml

From googling this KB issue most sites/posts first recommend "turning off" your antivirus when installing the update or manually download/install it. Quite a few posts seems to indicate something in the update is blocked by some antivirus programs during install. So, maybe uninstall the update, turn off your anti-viurs, do another Checks for Windows Updates so the update will attempt download/install again. If manually downloading the update be sure to turn off your antivurus during install. If and hopefully it installs, then turn back on your antivirus. Then see how the computer operates. Maybe worth a try.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/how-to-fix-windows-10-cumulative-update-kb3097617-installation-issues-494581.shtml

I resorted to the manual install, I don't have a 3rd party AV program, just the W10 defender or as it used to be called windows security or something like that, I have tried everything, got fed up rebooting and restoring so not going to try a reboot as it is working very normally right now, the problem starts when I reboot, basically it doesn't start properly, as I said setting msconfig to boot in safe mode seems to do something but it doesn't start in safe mode - weird I know it - reverts to a normal boot, there is something messed up and I don't know what exactly

I do have a full system image from last week as a last resort

It wouldn't really be an issue if MS would allow a choice to update or not, I think they are going to have to change that

You can turn off automatic updates in windows 10. Here's how.