When Insider build upgrade fails - A Workaround

Fafhrd said:

I guess I am still in sysprep - I've gone blank - how do I get out of this, and boot back to the old windows?

@Fafhrd

You should get out of it simply by running Sysprep to get to OOBE. Try this first, let's take it from there if it is not successful:

%windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe /oobe /reboot

You would still be in 14393, though, but maybe it's best not to try upgrade on that machine again?

OK Kari, I did that, and I still rebooted back to:

I am now in OOBE, and can run the command prompt, and several desktop apps, including Chrome Canary (writing this now), and since there is no user logon, there is no File Explorer, but 7-Zip file manager works well enough:



I am still not sure how to progress.

I am pretty sure that this will never upgrade via Windows 10 setup, but will clean install by applying a Windows image

Just finish OOBE to get back to desktop on your 14393. Forget the upgrade now. Close everything, select your region and click Next.

... and remember, when OOBE comes to user creation, you can't use any existing username. Make a temp local user, boot to desktop, sign out, sign in with your original admin account, remove temp user.

Clicked "next", then "do later" for product key, and I am now on the longest "Just a moment..." moment ever - considering nothing much is changing yet, or will do so until I can add a new user!

Ho Hum.

Please post if / when it finally gets to desktop!

After another 5 hours, shut down "Just a Moment...", and rebooted into OOBE, set Dummy 2 user, and OOBE completed.

This was the error screen:



Re-enabled my user account, signed out of Dummy 2 user and signed in to my user account.

Back to the old status quo, all working OK. That's enough for today, I think. Thanks Kari, good night!

Good night :)