Windows 10 Upgrade Failure Results in Unusable PC – Specific Questions

I tried to upgrade a laptop to Windows 10. The result of the upgrade is a PC with CPU usage constantly at 95% or more, so that it is unusable. The only tools I have found to work are Task Manager/Resource Monitor, and the Run item when you right click the Start Menu. I am asking for general help to solve my problem, but also specific help for these two questions which I am pursuing to solve my problem:

1. What services are dependent on WinHttpAutoProxySvc?
2. How can I get bcdedit to run in the command window? (I may need to switch to administrator within the command window.)

Details: I have a Dell Latitude E5400 with Intel Core2 Duo T7250 @2Gz, 3 GB RAM, over 100 GB of available hard drive space, and Intel Integrated Graphics. It was running Windows 7 Pro SP1, 32 bit. I upgraded using the Get Windows 10 app that has been on my PC for months. The upgrade process was troublesome. On the first attempt, something went wrong and it said “Try Again”, which I did. For the second attempt, it took a very long time. After accepting the legal stuff, I had that circle with the percentage in it for about 12 hours before it finished. After that I had a screen with just a blue Windows 10 logo and spinning dots. This lasted for roughly 40 hours. After choosing custom settings, it went thru some screens and eventually went to a black screen with a small window saying “Personalized settings. Setting up personalized settings for Web Platform Customizations” . This was there for 6 days before I decided to force a power down.
Since then I have forced a power cycle and rebooted many times. (Shutdown from the Start Menu never finishes.) Most reboots result in just a black screen (although I can see and move the cursor). About a quarter of the time, I get a normal looking Windows 10 desktop, with the same wallpaper slide show that I had on the Windows 7 install. However, most things do not work – try to start them and nothing happens. This includes MS WORD, File Explorer, left clicking on the Start Menu, etc. I can right click on the Start Menu, but Search, Command Prompt, Computer Management, etc. do not get any response. Only Run works. And only for the command prompt that I’ve seen so far. However, I can also do CTL-ALT-DLT and open Task Manager and then Resource Monitor. When I do this I see that WinHttpAutoProxySvc is taking 75-80% of CPU, and iphlpsvc is taking 17-20% of CPU. This is constant over many reboots over many days of runtime. So my CPU is constantly pegged at 95% or more. And from what I’ve discovered so far, the only tools at my disposal are Task Manager and the command prompt. I normally use a docking station, but I get the same behavior when the laptop is by itself with no wires whatsoever plugged into it.
I tried to stop WinHttpAutoProxySvc in the Services tab of Task Mgr, but it says I can’t because other services depend on it. I checked the Internet including sites like Black Viper, but I can’t find anything specific to Windows 10, and they all say no dependencies. So this is my question 1) above. What services depend on this, so I can try to stop them?
I also tried to stop iphlpsvc, but after 2 hours it was still “Stopping” and CPU usage had not gone down, so I gave up on that. I also tried selecting “Open Services” by right clicking on a service in the Task Mgr Services tab so I could disable services. This brings up a window, but it never paints the data, even after hours of wait.
Another approach I have pursued is to try to boot into safe mode. Tapping F8 does not work for me. I’ve read that I must execute “bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy” to enable F8. When I try this, I get “Access is Denied”. I wonder if this is because I must be administrator. So this is my question 2) above – how can I switch to administrator within the command line interface? Remember, Right click – Search does not work for me.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I would appreciate it. Thank you for your attention.

Here's a rather ignorant suggestion:

If you can, clean install Win 10. That's likely to get rid of mysterious errors. As you have already installed 10 as an upgrade and activated it, a clean install will automatically activate online for the same hardware ("digital entitlement"). I know that you may not wish to do that if you have a lot of software that came with the laptop, for which you have no installation media.

To run with admin privileges in command line, run cmd.exe as administrator. (Search for cmd. Right click the result, and choose "run as administrator".)

Best of luck.

bobkn said:

Here's a rather ignorant suggestion:

If you can, clean install Win 10.

I must be ignorant, because that is what I would do!

@billcz , does Win + X work to bring up the start menu context menu?

I know some Dell computers needed a BIOS update to work with Windows 8, and I guess the same applies for Windows 10.
Might be worth doing/checking if you can get it going enough to load a BIOS update.

Folks, thanks for your input.
-- bobkn, I've had a clean install in the back of my mind - but that is a last resort.
-- The frustrating thing is I can see what's wrong. Presumably if I can just manage to kill WinHttpAutoProxySvc, I'll be back in control. So I'd prefer to avoid the nuclear option. It is frustrating - why would MS allow a service to take 80% of the CPU in the first place?!!
-- NavyLCDR, Win + X doesn't respond.
-- I did discover tonight that flipping off the wireless switch makes things behave a little differently. Still bad, but different.
-- I've been able to reach the BIOS menu, so I'll put DavidY's suggestion in my to-do list. I just can't see how that will affect the WinHttpAutoProxySvc problem, tho.
-- I figured out how to open a command window as administrator - use runas. Unfortunately, I don't seem to know the admin password. However, the only reason to do that is to safe boot. Thanks to simrick's suggestion, I found out I can use Start->Run to call up msconfig. So I'll try it from there. However, I only want to safe boot so I can kill WinHttpAutoProxySvc. Maybe I can do that from msconfig!
Anyways, that will probably have to wait for the weekend. I can't afford to keep spending this time during the week.
Again, thanks for the suggestions.

Just a status report...
I haven't been able to run msconfig lately. For a while, behaviour was very predictable, but this weekend that was not the case. Sometimes some things work. Sometimes other things. Sometimes nothing!
However, I've discovered that with the wireless turned off I can predictably do Run --> "cmd". In the command line interface I've been copying my files to a thumb drive. That is slow but it is working! Of the programs on the computer, the only one I'm worried about is MS Office 2016 Pro Plus. Need to figure out how to copy that off or whatever needs to be done, after which a new install of Windows 10 would be an option. I have the activation key for Office, but the instructions say to uninstall the old copy first. Don't know if I'm going to be able to do that.
This weekend, CPU usage is steady at 80%, but split between a few processes. I did manage to disable WinHttpAutoProxySvc and iphlpsvc, I think (haven't been able to verify). Also Diagnostic Tracking Service which was taking up CPU. One of the processes taking a steady 20% of CPU is explorer.exe. So my problem is not just WinHttpAutoProxySvc using too much CPU - other things seem to take up the slack when it is disabled. It seems I have a more subtle problem.
BTW, I think Windows 10 is fully installed. At least, at the command prompt, "systeminfo" says the OS is Windows 10 installed back on 7/12. That was early on in my troubles.
I'll tackle it some more next weekend...