My main computer has died

[Jakkal]

So, with my secondary computer going out, well, it was old, I figured, whatever.

Now my main computer has died! And this is what I use for all my RL work stuff!

You guys are way smarter than I am so I'm hoping someone could give me some advice on what the problem might be.

Here's a video of what it's doing:

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlJfT8Dq58

Last night when I went to bed, I shut it down and it had updates to install. So I just let it do its thing while I went to bed. This morning, I turned it on, and it was running through all the updates, so I went to walk Doobie (my dog). When I came back, it was doing this.

I assume the updates did it somehow, but I don't know for certain.

Any advice on this matter would be extremely helpful!

[Xinux]

That sucks.... first have you tried booting into safe mode? You can also try booting to a command prompt and do a restore from a restore pont before the updates.

[zippyzee]

I would download the Windows 10 installer and put it on a USB stick, then boot into it and let it install. It will try to migrate over all of your existing software as best possible. It's free on Microsoft's site if you look around.

[Jakkal]

After talking to some people, apparently others are having this problem after windows update! I'm pretty pissed off because I keep telling my machine NOT to autoupdate, and it keeps doing it anyway.

[Jakkal]

Oh hell, crisis averted. Apparently MS screwed up a touchscreen driver. Unplugging the Cintiq's USB let it boot normally.

[Xinux]

Glad it was something simple.

[zippyzee]

There is a setting in the advanced computer settings to prevent Windows update from installing device drivers automatically. My main office PC was bricked twice due to a faulty hardware driver it tried to install on an update. With Windows 10 there are no selective driver on boot options so a bad driver=unrecoverable system if it can't even get to a recovery state. If I uncheck that box I will experience the meltdown all over again.

This happened even after a completely clean Windows 10 install when it tried to do the updates again. It thinks the motherboard has something it doesn't and won't stop trying to communicate with it, which puts it in a perpetual hang on bootup.

Glad you got yours figured out.

[Jakkal]

Man, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm worried about. And I always kept the backups of this machine on my other machine (Which I guess is still okay, just the machine won't boot either). I really need to get an external hard drive or something for backups.

[John Adams]

You ready for ultimate terror? Entering the bowels of Windows where angels fear to tread? Let me first advise, you do not need to do such drastic things if everything is okay. But, I have found oftentimes when I set Windows Update settings to NOT automatically update, very rarely does it set itself back - usually when major updates to Windows Update itself occur and Microsoft QA people suck probably because they are underpaid.

Click Start and in the Search box, type "Policy" - An option appears in Control Panel section called "Edit Group Policy". Open that very, very dangerous tool. (have I scared you yet? good... you should be scared)

Navigate down this path: Local Computer Policy->Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Update

[attachment=1]GP_Path.jpg[/attachment]
On the right, you'll see all the Policies related to Windows update. The only one you should have to "fix" is Configure Automatic Updates. Double-click on that.

[attachment=0]ConfigureAutomaticUpdates_GP.jpg[/attachment]

Setting it to Disabled means your computer will *never* even check for updates. This is bad, only because updates are actually good -- sometimes. If it were me, I'd set it to Enabled, and choose 2-Notify for download, notify for install for Configure automatic updating. This way you'll get the little balloon in systray saying updates are ready, and you can then select only the ones you want.

Since your 3rd party driver whacked you, it also sounds like maybe you have "install recommended updates" configured, too... which I never allow because I am a control freak (bet you didn't know that). You could alternately leave Windows Updates alone and disable Turn on recommended updates via Automatic Updates.


You can make these mods as a user via the Windows Updates tool under the Start menu -- but again, you're saying Windows changes the settings for you (it shouldn't do that). So this is like having a headache and removing the brain, vs taking a few aspirin.

I write this up not to sound smart (although I miss this kind of work and enjoyed doing so) but because I absolutely >>>>HATE<<<< how this world of software these days just does shit for you without asking. Any auto-updater, I block from even executing let alone calling out to the internet (firewall). It's not as much about control as it is not wanting to spend 5 days re-installing everything onto my main dev and studio boxes

If you ever need help emasculating Windows, I'm your guy.

[Jakkal]

From the reports coming in, it wasn't my Cintiq's software/drivers that killed it, it was actually a MS driver for touchscreens. It's weird, because my Cintiq is not the touchscreen model, but I guess whatever driver it uses is the same. Unplugging the USB I guess allowed the updates to go through, though I haven't restarted the machine since I got it working.

Someone I was talking to on Twitter had the same problem on their MS Tablet. They couldn't just unplug a USB, they got screwed. I'm not sure if they ever fixed it. (One of the reasons I prefer having a desktop PC to a tablet.)

I think MS just failed to test their crap before they threw it live.

And now it's wanting to force me to update to Windows 10! Normally I wouldn't have a problem with a free upgrade, but I have to make sure all my work software works with it, and I'm still waiting on certain programs to become compatible.

Oh well, at least it didn't take out my work machine, I can't do anything on a laptop