Dual-Boot System upgraded to Windows 10, now Win7 gives LogON error

I have a dual boot system in the following configuration:

HDD-0 = Win7 OS, HDD-1 = Win7 OS, WinXP OS. I have successfully booted into each of these operating systems - and the Win7 OS on HDD-1 is an exact clone of the primary OS on HDD-0.

I just upgraded the Win7 OS on HDD-0 to Windows 10 using the "Get Windows 10" process. I now get the new blue Boot Manger screen with all three OS's listed and I can successfully boot into Windows 10 and Windows XP. But I cannot boot into the Win7 OS on HDD-1 (which I could before the Windows 10 upgrade). How the upgrade even knew about the other copy of Windows 7, since it was not active and lives on another HDD is beyond me.

One strange thing - if I do a cold startup (power on) I get the new Boot Manger screen. But if I do a Restart from Windows 10, I get the old, black & white boot manger screen - and it does list all three OS's correctly, too.

The error message I get when trying to open (boot) the Windows 7 OS is: "LogonUI.exc - Entry point not found. RtlReleasePath could not be located in the ntdll.dll" And, like others, I now get the black screen with "Windows 7, Build 7601 This copy of Windows is not genuine (but it was yesterday before the Windows 10 upgrade on the other HDD).

And like others, I can start the Crtl+Alt+Del to get the screen with users, Task Manger, etc. And, I can run all my applications by manually starting them in a New Task and browsing to the exe file - like Firefox.exe or Word.exe So, it looks like Windows 7 started and may be running. I just can't get into it.

I understand this may have something to do with the faster boot that was introduced in Windows 8 since the problem started around then.


I think both issues, the LogOn and the "Not Genuine" are both related to the Entry Point no located in the ntdll.dll.


At this point I really don't want to reload Windows 7 since it appears to be running and all the apps can be run manually.


All this happened after the upgrade of the other Win7 on HDD-0.


I'm going to post this in the Sevenforums, too, since it may be related to that OS as well.



Thanks

Do you still have the Windows 7 installation media (USB or DVD)? I suspect that when you cloned the HDD-0 Windows 7 to HDD-1 and ran them side by side some pointers in the HDD-1 Windows 7 were still pointing to and actually using the Windows 7 on HDD-0. What I would try is from within Windows 7 run the setup.exe on your Windows 7 installation media, in effect doing an in place upgrade of Windows 7 to Windows 7. That might re-install some of those target files and pointers to their proper locations on HDD-1.

The Windows 10 install was aware of the Windows 7 on HDD-1 because of the pointer to it that was contained in the BCD store (boot files).

Your "cold startup" from Windows 10 shutdown is not as "cold" as you think it is. It is actually a hybrid shutdown recovery, very similar to hibernation. The "restart" from the Windows 10 power icon is actually a true all the way shutdown to bios and restart, that's why you see the different initial boot menu. You might have less problems if you turn fast startup off in Windows 10.

Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Thanks for the reply - I do have my original Windows 7 Pro disk; if I run the setup.exe on the DVD how will that affect all the currently installed applications (that appear to run just fine from the Task Manager)? I'm just so convinced that Windows 7 seems to be running, just not passing the LogonUI successfully, that I don't want to do a full reinstall.

Roxie2401 said:

Thanks for the reply - I do have my original Windows 7 Pro disk; if I run the setup.exe on the DVD how will that affect all the currently installed applications (that appear to run just fine from the Task Manager)? I'm just so convinced that Windows 7 seems to be running, just not passing the LogonUI successfully, that I don't want to do a full reinstall.

It should not affect all your currently installed applications or user data files.

This article contains a very thorough process, but most of the preparation steps are not really required (but good to do anyway):
How to Repair a Corrupt Windows 7 Installation | PCWorld

This is a simplified tutorial - just do it in Windows 7 with the Windows 7 DVD instead of Windows 10:
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade - Windows 10 Forums

Hi - am I correct that since I can't get to the Optical Drive from my Windows 7 in its current state, that I should boot from the Installation Disk? How will it find the Windows 7 OS that I want to repair?

Roxie2401 said:

Hi - am I correct that since I can't get to the Optical Drive from my Windows 7 in its current state, that I should boot from the Installation Disk? How will it find the Windows 7 OS that I want to repair?

NO! Do not boot from the Installation Disk! What you can do is in Windows 10 copy all the files from the Windows 7 installation disk to a folder that Windows 7 has access to, like create a new folder Win7 and just dump all the files from the DVD into it. Then from within Windows 7, run setup.exe from the folder you copied the files to.

Booting from the Windows 7 disk will cause you to do a clean install and, at best, copy all your old Windows 7 stuff to windows.old folder and at worst wipe it out completely.

Got it - copying all the files & folders from the Windows 7 Pro installation disk to a folder in Windows 10 - then move that folder to the Windows 7 on HDD-1 and boot into that OS and use the Task Manager to find and run the startup.exe file. And when the window opens select "Upgrade"

Sound right? (And keep my fingers crossed!)

Roxie2401 said:

Got it - copying all the files & folders from the Windows 7 Pro installation disk to a folder in Windows 10 - then move that folder to the Windows 7 on HDD-1 and boot into that OS and use the Task Manager to find and run the startup.exe file. And when the window opens select "Upgrade"

Sound right? (And keep my fingers crossed!)

Yep, sounds right. Good luck!

Well, no luck. Get the following two error messages:

api-ms-win-core-com-midlproxystub-l1-1-0.dll is missing

Ordinal 854 Not Located in iertutil.dll

Next message is "to upgrade Windows, the User, Program Files & Windows need to be on the same partition. Well, they are....



Still bugs me that I can run from the Task Manager and not the usual desktop. Looks like a logonUI.exe issue again.

Two thoughts :

When running in the Windows 7, is it C: drive, or something else? If it isn't C: drive, then I would change the drive letter to C:. You will have to do that while booted in Windows 7. Might have to install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to do it.

Second thought is to create a new user account in Windows 7 and see if the problems exist in the new account.