Windows update 13 Jan 18 has locked PC to the lock screen

Hi, yesterday Microsoft pushed out a major update to my PC, presumably in answer to meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities. It has locked my PC to the lock screen. If I try to login it flashes the desktop for a fraction of a second, then resets the lockscreen.

I have been able to get to advanced options by holding down shift while restarting but my monitor goes black if I select any options and I have to force shutdown. Tried hitting F12 and also delete during startup and PC starts but monitor is black, again have toforce shutdown.

Mobo = Gigabyte Z270N-wifi
CPU = Intel Core i7 7700k

Any ideas how to fix this? MS techs were no help after 4 different ones and 4+ hrs on chat with them. Everything functioned perfect before their poxy, half baked update.

Yes I am posting from my android tablet, my Windows 10 PC is locked to the lock screen (hence reason for posting thread). I was able to resolve the black screen issue. Turned out my PC was starting with monitor 1 (usual default) but then routing only to monitor 2 whenever I tried to access anything from the advanced options menue or boot into bios. Monitor 2 was never turned on though so all I saw was a black screen.

So I have been able to reorder boot sequence and boot to installation media and tried startup repair, safe mode and system restore. Nothing has helped. In system restore, the only restore point is after this rubbish update (good one Microsoft).

I read the link you posted and I don't have third party antivirus. So doesn't help to explain much.

Is there any waybto access earlier restore points (like before this system update)? Any other ideas? Any way to fix through the command prompt?

FIXED!

I thought I'd post the fix here in case it is useful for anyone else. I got a call back from a 2nd level Microsoft Technician this afternoon and he had me up and running in about 3 minutes. I learned some things:

• This update to Windows is treated as a completely new version of windows (like updating from 8 to 10).
• Having only the 1 restore point, taken after the update is normal when updating from one version of windows to another, all previous restore points are deleted and a single new restore point is made immediately after installation (presumably of a clean installation.... in my case a buggered install).
• When the new Windows version is installed an image of your previous version is made and you can roll back to it within 7 days. After 7 days it's no longer accessible..... well that's the official advice anyway, there may be a way, who knows.

In my case, I was not able to access the desktop after the update. Here is the steps that got me back to a working version of Windows.


1. On the signin screen there is a power icon in the bottom right corner, click it and then hold down the shift button while clicking restart. Hold down the shift button through the restart process and it should boot into a blue screen with some options.
2. Select "Troubleshoot"
3. Select "Advanced Options"
4. You should see some text at the bottom of the available options saying "See more recovery options". Select it.
5. Select "Go back to the previous version"
6. Your computer will restart and you'll be prompted to select the profile and password, etc. Follow the prompts and it should roll back your PC to the state it was in before this most recent Windows update locked you out (worked for me).
7. Now, Windows will want to install the update again. The MS Tech had me disable services "background intelligent transfer service" and "windows update". But about 1/2hr later I was prompted to restart my computer to install the latest updates. I found a setting in Settings > Update & Security > Advanced Options > Pause Update. It says it will pause updates for 25 days, we'll see. Hopefully Microsoft will iron out the bugs with this by then.

My files were unaffected by this but if you are concerned, the MS Tech showed me a handy trick to easily back them up without desktop access.

1. Follow steps 1-3 above.
2. Select "Startup Settings"
3. Select "Restart"
4. Your PC will restart and there should be a numbered list of options. Select 6, or just type the number 6.
5. Your PC will restart again and you should now be in a command prompt window. It should default to c:\windows\system32. Now if you're command line god like personage then you can CD around and backup files here, but if your a mere mortal then go on to the next steps.
6. Type in "notepad" and hit enter.
7. A new blank notepad document should open up. Select "File" and then "Open" and a file browser window should open. Now you can navigate around and backup your files just as you would if you could have gotten to your desktop.

It is the update that was pushed to me PC after announcement of the meltdown and spectre vulnerabilities. Interesting how it is so well known that 4 Microsoft techs and 4+ hours of support didn't know what to do about it.

This is what I've been saying ...

onefish said:

This update to Windows is treated as a completely new version of windows (like updating from 8 to 10).

So ... we had the original Windows 10.
Then Anniversary, which is really Windows 11.
Then CU 2017 ... Windows 12.
Then FCU 2017 .. Windows 13.

So this latest update (Meltdown/Spectre) ... Is it a full Windows redux, making it Windows 14? Or is it only a partial update?

Anyway ... perhaps Microsoft skipped Windows 9 out of fear of running out of numbers! :) Ya don't wanna use 'em up too quickly!

They seem to be following the path of Firefox, which has moved from v3 to v57 in a mere ten years. In 2020 will I be running Windows 19?