KB3147458 Cumulative Update build 10586.21 for Windows 10 Version 1511

Needhelpwithwin said:

the weirdest thing happened! Now in the installation screen I'm stuck in the lower right corner that win10 watermark thing saying to activate windows appeared

going to leave it for more time and see what happens but it's soooo strange!

Question :

Before you started this Repair Install, were you using Windows 10 ?
If yes, was that Windows 10 activated ?

Yes using Win10

No it was not activated (using it for free with the occasional water mark appearing and disappearing)

Needhelpwithwin said:

Yes using Win10

No it was not activated (using it for free with the occasional water mark appearing and disappearing)

There is your problem.
Your Windows 10 was never activated.
Therefore after Repair Install, it remains NOT activated.

I don't know how you got into Windows 10 in the beginning.

Question :
What operating system you were using BEFORE you installed Windows 10 ?
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or 8.1 ?

I just made a bootable USB flash drive using the Microsoft site thing(don't remember the name) and made a clean install in my new PC! Saw on the internet that the trial windows 10 can be used fully without the need to activate you only lose the ability to personalize things like wallpaper and get this watermark saying for you to activate.

I was using it till the update perfectly without any problems! Are they preventing me from fix my PC because of this?

To be fair I tried to buy the key but in my country things are difficult and Microsoft don't accept the payment in the way I can pay. I mean it do not accept my bank card! I would have to do another card just for this purchase and after seeing how win10 is going I'm glad I failed to buy it!

So MS has cocked up the gpedit in their latest update. Yes I've seen the work around but, why should we have to do this. What are they playing at, surely their software engineers must test these releases. OK, so it's not important to
the average joe who never enter gpedit but, for those who do it's really bad programming and a pain in the arse.

Even MS has stated that they are aware of the problem.

So my last chance is backup files, format and do a clean install???? Will a clean install really solve it?

Any way for me to discover what I did wrong to mess my PC?

Since I can't find any news about this problem no one cares or ppl like me that are having problems are considered stupid or something and should be forgotten

I would try a clean install or did manufacturer provide a recovery option to return to factory state. I doubt you did anything wrong. Windows 10 is a finicky beast and whilst most don't have problems with updates they do have the potential to create problems if your unlucky. You could just of been unfortunate to have some bit of software installed that the OS doesn't like - but troubleshooting can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Starting over isn't pleasant because you have to re install all your software etc etc. That's why many of the good folk in these forums highly recommend taking a system image once your relatively settled with the system. Then it can save time and aggravation if you ever need to roll back. Macrium reflect is popular or I just use the windows in built image method - it's a bit slower but it saved me a couple times back when I had Windows 7. Always worked a treat

Guess I will have to do that! I barely have anything installed in this PC cause it's made for gaming so that's why it's hard to believe I messed something The only things I have here that can damage the update is avast and comodo firewall but can they do a damage so great that a in place upgrade or a restore point could not fix it? I use avast and comodo in my win7 laptop and never had any problems!

Also you talked about something I wanted to try! This system image thing :) But would it fix my problem if I had one? For me only a good old format and clean install to fix this crazy problems! I mean I did overwritten Win10 with a fresh in place upgrade and nothing was fixed!

Should I avoid using avast and comodo? Any recomendations?

With system image it's a tough one to know for sure because you could be imaging the underlying problem but I guess it's unlikely. I think something more likely went wrong during the initial update itself and its pure bad luck. Something could of started running background at the time of the update and things got in a mess. Totally speculative and probably never going to know for certain. As for AV and firewall well I just use Windows defender and Windows own firewall. I then use anti malwarebytes free just to run periodic scans but not for real time protection - I leave that upto defender. I don't think many people like defender but I reason MS own anti virus and firewall are most likely to play nice with its own OS.

I guess if your a gamer then you have a decent gpu. If you've got nvidia and you have GeForce experience then get that garbage of your PC and only install the drivers. I read all sorts of problems related to GeForce experience.

am by no means an expert but I'd advise clean install, get your drivers sorted out if you need to source them, download the updates for Windows, take a restore point, get some of your much needed critical software back on, then do an image assuming everything is still ticking over ok. Then you'll know if you ever need to call on that image at least you don't need to go driver hunting or installing your critical stuff again