Cannot upgrade past 1511

I have a Lenovo T400 laptop that runs a legitimate activated copy of Windows 7 Pro. I successfully upgraded it to Windows 10 1511 some time ago. It has all the updates to 1511 but cannot install the 1809 update.

Any ideas?

I work heavily on this model and have done likely more multiple-boot situations, etc.

Thus, my answer is both.

But in anticipation of the questions that might have derailed the discussion needless, I have done the following literally the simplest configuration.

Just drive C:, plenty of disk space, HD is a 500 GB HGST drive, 8 GB, T9900 CPU, etc. About as far as it can go short of even larger hard disk (or even 2 if in the DVD slot]

Installed clean Windows 7 and all drivers, which is a bit tricky unless you know where they all are, in the end Device manager completely clean, etc.

Used the 1511 upgrade disk of Win10, no problems auto-activated. I did then again 2 days ago just to be sure.

When Windows Upgrade gets to the 1809 update, it predictably never completes. This is the error code every time.

0xC1900101 - 0x20017

I read that is a driver issue, so I changed the video from the ATI 3400 HD to the Microsoft generic [which I assume is a Vesa mode]

I disabled the driver for the wireless, use the 10-base-1000 wired to my router. n No USB anything plugged in, then uninstalled the Ericcson 1507g driver, the wireless driver, and the two bluetooth drivers.

Doesn't matter, always the same result.

Separately, I downloaded and manually ran setup.exe in the 1703 update, doesn't matter. All end the same exact way. Can't get past 1511 and all updates, up to then no problems and all the normal automatic Windows Update, etc.

I will try changing the video to the Intel low-performance graphics, a good tip! I'll get back here after I have tried that.

Anything else anyone can recommend to either downgrade or uninstall or what?

Thanks for the rapid reply.

I am relatively new to this forum, but I have been working on ThinkPads all the way back to the T20 and Windows 2000 upgrading to Win XP. I also have XP and Vista for this T400,. but those partitions are imaged and gone, not that doing that seemed to even help!

I just avoided 8, period.

Regarding multiple-boot configurations, ask me!

I hid all but drive C: for the last test, so nothing really to see there.

I use RUFUS to make ISOs into bootable flash drives when I download, and the MS tool when it applies. Rufus is just nicer for making a lot more install flash-drives, etc. I've got a whole collection.

I've also mounted ISOs and copied all the files to another empty drive, and then ran setup from there i[in the root of course]. No need to be bootable because I am always running setup.exe from the root of whatever drive it's on, this is an upgrade every time.

If I get nowhere with the Intel graphics suggestion, I will try a 100% squeaky clean install from whatever version you want me to try I can even make a 1903 bootable if you want. No problems with other machines doing all of this, but I am disappointed that the fine old T400 is treated so shabbily here, etc.

You may be curious why I want to do all this: I develop a PD facility for Windows, the object is development and simulation of older machines [you may have heard of SIMH]. Windows is a far better base for what I need to do than unix. this is a matter of fact, I need many things that are trivial and easy and freeware in Windows, and I've looked at unix for the exact same thing and it produces a toy version compared to what I have, so no justification to change. Also, no, wine can't do it either.

Anyway, comes as no surprise, there are quirks for each implementation and I have BATCH scripts that check for Windows version and setup accordingly, and it all runs from a series of auto-installed [can be manually overriden] environment variables. I asked Shaun Brink who commiserated with me that Windows 10 is now very broken so some things he developed no longer work there!

Thus, for my own convenience, it makes sense to multi-boot into any and all of the supported systems, although I conquered all the 32-bit versus 64-bit quirks that first came up in Vista, and today no additional on that aspect, all my problems are "generic" except for some desktop specifics that only XP and Vista fix native. and Shaun's techniques fix for Win 7 and Win 8, etc.

I also have to document screen shots for the documentation of any and all of them as part of writing really good documentation for the package, etc.

Windows 10 is clearly THE WORST version yet. and idiotic on many levels. Also, the Classic Shell guy has given up because of it!

cjl

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A few more I can answer while I am waiting:

What is Crystal Diskinfo, not familial with that one.

I got in under the wire to get Mini-Tool MWP 8.1 for the free offer of an isolinux-based ISO which I applied with Rufus to my tiniest flash drive [a 2.0 GB]. I like it also, Easeus will NOT delete drive 0 like Partition Magic did, which is arbitrary. Anyone can put back a partition and then just set it active, etc. I think they are just catering to the same people who have no clue about the inner-workings of partitions, which is somewhat self-defeating, etc.

Also, only Vista and 7 [perhaps 8, certainly not 10] support Dual-Boot Pro which is indispensable for a multiple-boot situation, which 8 and 10 handle very nicely, turning it into a GUI equivalent. But if you boot back to a Vista or 7, then you can run Dual-Boot pro and bring back the old text version, etc.

In any case, that supports such as XP, the stand-alone recovery console and any combination of everything else. Win 10 can be coerced to de-graphics-afy it by a few boots to 7 or less, but it does seem to cling to it once it is there. In any case,all Win 10 installed temporarily disable all of this until a forced rollback or a successful install. I didn't mention any of this before because it just works fine, AND in my now-current test-bed, it is all irrelevant.

This is fresh install and then upgrade after Ghost images of everything as needed. Thus, there isn't any Anti-Malware/Anti-Virus installed yet, I wanted to eliminate all the blind alleys to not waste anyone's time, but I am quite comfortable with all of that stuff, and an export at exploring the dark corners of Lenovo EOL support pages [which are slightly broken!].

cjl

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DId the same upgrade install of 1511, this time with no USB mouse in case it mattered, Intel graphics and I did confirm that Win10 likes that fine, yet it still crashed exactly the same way, perhaps it took even longer, but the end result is the same.

So, if no further ideas, I will next do a 100% clean install with a real product key. Any particular release you recommend to start given now just a virgin empty drive C: - only install?

Makes sense. At least it puts to bed a lot of feat. That said. running 1511 seems to work fine in most ways, and no overheating and both video hardware choices work fine, thus, it is not clear that the drivers are not compatible, more like a political statement we don't like them.

Or am I wrong? Every driver is unsuitable for any newer win10 release? That doesn't make sense, and to me this smacks of deliberate non-support more than anything else.

Also, I find Windows installations "steal" from that which runs another setup, not in this case as an upgrade but a "side-grade" thus I am also going to try a fully functional Windows 7 full driver support correctly, and then run SETUP for a 1903 system to be installed on another drive leaving the win 7 intact.

BTW. there is a great tool, Dual-Boot pro to handle elegantly all the multi-boot stuff, but you can't run it on Win10, so you have to have at least one other partition running 7 or Vista to reconfigure when/if necessary.

cjl

My point of disagreement is are you saying that a system redefines its own drivers during its lifetime to demand new features? That can happen in a future system of course, but in the same system, i don't see how its justified, or are they just so sloppy the specs DO change, so the inevitability is in part more of don't know, don't care. To my knowledge, SP3 and SP2 of XP did not demand more functionality of drivers, just that some more were added in various ways, but no one was expecting them to work better, just perhaps nailing down some specs, not changing them, etc.

Or, are we to swallow some hype that in name only, there won't be another system, but they will change things that drastically?

BTW, I also tried to upgrade from 1511 to 1703 and the same error condition. Was so much changed in that relatively short period, or is this just that it loses track of things. I have heard of incredibly bad update releases, but that seems to just support my points, not reality.

cjl (I know, you just work here, don't make the rules,etc.]