All startup items are missing from Win 10 after upgrade from Win 7

dmcmillen · 10 Dec 2019

I just upgraded (using the MediaCreationTool1909) my Win 7 Home Premium desktop to Win 10 (1909 , 18363.476) yesterday. Before upgrading I disabled all windows startup items and all non-MS services in msconfig (performing a clean boot before the upgrade). I was happy that the upgrade only took about 1 hr 20 min. After the upgrade all the services were there in msconfig to be enabled, but NONE of the startup items were there (now in the task manager) except for the mouse driver and the realtek audio driver. Everything else is gone. 27 items that start via a registry run entry. All of the executable files are still there in there original location, just no startup anymore. A couple of the programs can be set to run on windows startup, but the rest, are set during installation. I am in the process of evaluating the status of all the programs. I don't want to reinstall all these programs, because even if able to I would lose years of configuration information.

Is this a known problem with W10 upgrade? Was it possibly caused by upgrading from a clean boot? I can recover the system back to the state prior to the upgrade and do again, but I'm not sure what I'd do differently.

Appreciate any help here.

dalchina · 10 Dec 2019

Hi, just to check, are you sure you are logged in as the user you expect? E.g. is everything you expect on your desktop, and in Documents, Music etc?

Caledon Ken · 10 Dec 2019

I believe you did a Clean boot before upgrade and and such Windows didn't port your apps. One members opinion.

I would create an Image of your current system using a tool like Macrium reflect and test the rescue boot media.

Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

I would then fall back to Windows 7.

Start > Settings > Update and Security > Recovery

Once in 7 re-enable all services / startup items. Then uninstall, not disable, all third party security and privacy tools. (Norton, Avast etc)

Then take an image of Win 7 and finally run setup from your MCT created USB Thumbdrive.

I've converted at least a dozen machines and I've never disabled any startup items other than uninstalling AV / Privacy tools.

Of course this is my thoughts.

Ken

dmcmillen · 10 Dec 2019

Hi dalchina. Everything looks "normal", correct user, all files are there. I haven't checked the registry yet to see if there because I don't have the exact registry entry. I would imagine if they were there as a run entry they would show up as a startup item. Dropbox, for example, shows as an installed program, the startup exe's exist in the correct location, but not as a startup item.

- - - Updated - - -

Note, all programs were ported, just not the startup items. The programs are there to be run. For example, the dropbox program is there, but is not being run on startup because its startup items were not ported.

Note I uninstalled Norton Antivirus before upgrading.

Is the suggestion to revert back to my Win 7 image, and run the upgrade with the services and startup items enabled?? That would imply that there is a problem with the upgrade. Remember all the disabled services came over.

The recommendation on the MS Technet forum for the upgrade was to perform a clean boot, disabling all windows startup items and all non-MS services.

dalchina · 10 Dec 2019

Hi dalchina. Everything looks "normal", correct user, all files are there.

That's reassuring- no wrong or temporary profile then. Didn't expect so really.

Try downloading and running Autoruns from MS (free). (as admin).

You can then search that list of registry and startup folder entries for any occurrence of your startup programs.

Clearly they were not scheduled tasks, as you say you originally disabled them using the task manager.

The recommendation on the MS Technet forum for the upgrade was to perform a clean boot, disabling all windows startup items and all non-MS services.

- quite a standard recommendation, esp. to disable or uninstall any 3rd party security software.

dmcmillen · 11 Dec 2019

Forgot about sysinternals autoruns. Nice to use with Process Explorer. Turns out that there are a couple checked as startups. "AdobeAAMUpdater-1.0" , Adobe "Switchboard", and the InstallShield "ISUSPM Startup" are in the registry as startups but do not show up in the Task Manager/Updates list, but all the others are not listed as startup items in autoruns. As it turns out most of them are not affecting running the software except for Dropbox and my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2 startup tray item is not there, but I have a larger problem with it because the SSR 2013 R2 service fails to start with a timeout error. It was working fine before upgrade and W10 is a supported OS. I will have to work with Veritas (now owns SSR). That's my top priority because I need get backups. SunJavaUpdateSched did not carry over.

Anyway, don't know why they didn't carry over, but I think I can workaround.

- - - Updated - - -

Well this is really crazy and kind of scary. While trying to get my Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2 running, I noticed that the C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Symantec System Recovery directory is missing all but 2 directories and those are missing most of their files. I looked at the backup image of the system I took before the upgrade and they are there. Now why or how could that happen with the upgrade???

And as I mentioned in the previous post, after checking all the startup items that were there prior to the upgrade against autoruns, 3 still exist in the registry but are not listed in the task manager/startups???

Anyone seen this sort of behavior with the w10 upgrade before? I wonder what else is missing that I will find down the road.

Edit: After looking further the C:\ProgramData\Symantec folder is missing most of it's folders and files

Caledon Ken · 11 Dec 2019

Have you checked out Macrium Reflect free. Current backup software that does a really good job. Depending on backup needs this could be a very good solution. I've purchased, get Image Guard, Incrementals and folder / file backup. Free works at partition level and supports full and differentials.

dalchina · 11 Dec 2019

Just wondering- have you checked your disk recently?

Try HD Tune (free) Health and error scan tabs e.g. Crystal Diskinfo (free) shows SMART params but no surface scan.

Also try if that passes:
chkdsk c: /scan
from an admin command or Powershell prompt. (no repairs).

And Macrium Reflect is recommended time and again here.

dmcmillen · 11 Dec 2019

I tested the drive with HD Tune Pro and Crystal Disk and performed a chkdsk on the drive before upgrading. No problems. FYI, it is an SSD. Also ran sfc /scannow

I've been using Symantec System Recovery(SSR) (now owned by Veritas) for years, mainly because I used Norton Ghost for years before that in business. I have never had any problems with it and found it easy to use. I don't like the way their Files/Folders backup works, but I only use image backups. With the ability to browse the images and recover files don't really need. It also supports a Recovery Anywhere option which I used successfully about 6 years ago to recover from a mother board failure. I was able to recover to the new hardware from an image backup made with the old hardware.

Anyway, the problems I am currently having have have nothing to do with the backup/recovery software. They have been caused by the W10 upgrade and I was using that as an example of what the upgrade did. I had been planning to upgrade to W10 and then upgrade the SSR to the latest Veritas version. However, in doing that I found that the uninstall program was missing and that led to discovering much more missing. Right now I don't see any rhyme or reason to what is missing.

Caledon Ken · 11 Dec 2019

If it were my system, and I had the confidence in the backup system you have I would do as I suggested earlier.

Fallback and re-do migration with nothing disabled, just third party AV's removed.

In all my migrations I haven't had such issues, as a matter of fact I did my Win 7 machine just recently and was extremely impressed with the success. (Two different storage controllers, Marvell and Intel, active Raid 1 and a mixture of old and new software with a slight overclock on the CPU.)

That said every conversion Windows 10 will chuck some things out, my Asus bluetooth programs didn't make the cut. Each app that Windows 10 didn't like was presented as a Win 10 notification.