Windows 20H2 update not appearing when I check for updates

NavyLCDR said:

Personnaly, I make backup images of drives.

I have done that with some different tools.

My experience however is that sometimes that isn't as good as just copying the data you want somewhere you know it will be accessible. (Once I had a lot of things in a series of SVN (subversion) repositories... I had imaged the data drive they were on, but the OS drive went away and some part of the credentials to be able to access the repositories was NOT resident in the SVN tree - I thought everything for SVN lived in the tree which was one reason it was easy to move SVN directories... and I've had a few cases where I lost a system drive but saved the My Documents and so on, but could not recover contents even by forcing access....).

And although imaging my drive now would give me some security against some command set trying to fix this blowing things up, if something happens on the machine that's unrecoverable, that might still be an issue if that's all I do.

An image isn't a bad idea, if I can make sure I have a big enough spare drive on hand.

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f14tomcat said:

kaladorn, 1TB? Nobody has asked, so I will. Can you do a screenshot of your Disk Management display and post it here? Thanks.....

How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

There's two drive partitions with both having at least 40 Gb of free space (C: and D:) but I'll post the snapshot so you can see if there are any other partitions (startup, WINRE, bios recovery, etc). In the morning... on the wrong computer right now.

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kaladorn said:

I ran the command (though with no output, I couldn't tell you what it did). When it went to the command prompt again, I ran a restart.

I then ran 'windows update' and checked for updates. A printer update went in for my canon printer. That's it. Now it says up to date.

Now, just to mention:

Windows Update lists a 10+ optional updates that seem to be driver updates.
I've been leery of any updates of those sorts (mobo chipset ones) because if one of them goes bad... I'm no sure the manufacturer's bios recovery will work (no way to test after a larger disk replaced the original 2-3 years ago). If one of them borks, the machine might be toast. Also, I'm a bit skeptical because a bunch of these updates mention Xeon in the update name and I do not have a Xeon in the laptop (it's an i7 early gen - an MSI GE 70 OND from about 2012.

Is there any possibility that there's a hardware issue? Is it possible this hardware can't go any further than 2004 release? That would be unfortunate. I can't afford new hardware now.

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In the YouTube show more, I believe he/she typed out all the commands:

net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
net stop appidsvc
net stop cryptsvc
Del "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader\*.*"
rmdir %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution /S /Q
rmdir %systemroot%\system32\catroot2 /S /Q
sc.exe sdset bits D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)
sc.exe sdset wuauserv D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)
cd /d %windir%\system32

regsvr32.exe /s atl.dll
regsvr32.exe /s urlmon.dll
regsvr32.exe /s mshtml.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shdocvw.dll
regsvr32.exe /s browseui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s jscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s vbscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s scrrun.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml6.dll
regsvr32.exe /s actxprxy.dll
regsvr32.exe /s softpub.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wintrust.dll
regsvr32.exe /s dssenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s rsaenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s gpkcsp.dll
regsvr32.exe /s sccbase.dll
regsvr32.exe /s slbcsp.dll
regsvr32.exe /s cryptdlg.dll
regsvr32.exe /s oleaut32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s ole32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shell32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s initpki.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups2.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuweb.dll
regsvr32.exe /s qmgr.dll
regsvr32.exe /s qmgrprxy.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wucltux.dll
regsvr32.exe /s muweb.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuwebv.dll
netsh winsock reset
netsh winsock reset proxy
net start bits
net start wuauserv
net start appidsvc
net start cryptsvc


Without much explanation, I'm a bit leery to just fire up something I don't really have much of an idea what/why is being executed....

I did some reading on service control manager and on what regrvr32 was doing (mostly to refresh what the flag /s was). Doesn't look too nasty. The SDDL parameters for the sdsets were a hard to figure out (the SDDL link had moved and I haven't round a replacement reference yet so not quite sure what the security params are saying exactly). Still, likely worth a try after I do an image and a restore point.

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kaladorn said:

I ran the command (though with no output, I couldn't tell you what it did). When it went to the command prompt again, I ran a restart.

I then ran 'windows update' and checked for updates. A printer update went in for my canon printer. That's it. Now it says up to date.

Now, just to mention:

Windows Update lists a 10+ optional updates that seem to be driver updates.
I've been leery of any updates of those sorts (mobo chipset ones) because if one of them goes bad... I'm no sure the manufacturer's bios recovery will work (no way to test after a larger disk replaced the original 2-3 years ago). If one of them borks, the machine might be toast. Also, I'm a bit skeptical because a bunch of these updates mention Xeon in the update name and I do not have a Xeon in the laptop (it's an i7 early gen - an MSI GE 70 OND from about 2012.

Is there any possibility that there's a hardware issue? Is it possible this hardware can't go any further than 2004 release? That would be unfortunate. I can't afford new hardware now.

- - - Updated - - -



In the YouTube show more, I believe he/she typed out all the commands:

net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
net stop appidsvc
net stop cryptsvc
Del "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Network\Downloader\*.*"
rmdir %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution /S /Q
rmdir %systemroot%\system32\catroot2 /S /Q
sc.exe sdset bits D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)
sc.exe sdset wuauserv D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)
cd /d %windir%\system32

regsvr32.exe /s atl.dll
regsvr32.exe /s urlmon.dll
regsvr32.exe /s mshtml.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shdocvw.dll
regsvr32.exe /s browseui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s jscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s vbscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s scrrun.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml6.dll
regsvr32.exe /s actxprxy.dll
regsvr32.exe /s softpub.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wintrust.dll
regsvr32.exe /s dssenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s rsaenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s gpkcsp.dll
regsvr32.exe /s sccbase.dll
regsvr32.exe /s slbcsp.dll
regsvr32.exe /s cryptdlg.dll
regsvr32.exe /s oleaut32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s ole32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shell32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s initpki.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups2.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuweb.dll
regsvr32.exe /s qmgr.dll
regsvr32.exe /s qmgrprxy.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wucltux.dll
regsvr32.exe /s muweb.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuwebv.dll
netsh winsock reset
netsh winsock reset proxy
net start bits
net start wuauserv
net start appidsvc
net start cryptsvc


Without much explanation, I'm a bit leery to just fire up something I don't really have much of an idea what/why is being executed....

I did some reading on service control manager and on what regrvr32 was doing (mostly to refresh what the flag /s was). Doesn't look too nasty. The SDDL parameters for the sdsets were a hard to figure out (the SDDL link had moved and I haven't round a replacement reference yet so not quite sure what the security params are saying exactly). Still, likely worth a try after I do an image and a restore point.

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As requested, Disk Management view:



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I'm going to run a drive image likely this evening if I have a 1TB external drive empty. It'll take some time (USB 2 at best). Once I have an image, I'll run the script and see what happens.

1 question I have: the laptop has an SSD in it (Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB) - the backup drive would be a HDD (vs. SSD) in an external enclosure. Can I still do a full image? Does the difference between SSD or HDD make any difference to something like AOMEI Backup Assistant or Macrium Reflect Free - the likely tools I'd use to image the laptop drive?

Maybe we'll get to the root of this once I run the script. The other thing I'll do before I run the script is make sure I pull my License Code for Win 10 from this machine.

If I do have to reinstall Win10 from scratch, I wonder if the fact it was a Win 10 upgrade from Win 7 will be an issue (as far as license keys or any such matters go)? Never had to do that. And wouldn't enjoy having to install Win 7 first then find out if you can still do the 7->10 upgrade...

f14tomcat said:

Thanks for the Disk Management screenshot.

I don't think I have ever seen a Recovery partition that large, unless it was an OEM bloatware package.

The OS partition is immense. You must have GBs and GBs of user data in with your OS, which is normally 30GB or so in size.

Not criticizing, just commenting. That size of an OS partition makes imaging the OS for backup purposes on a regular basis an issue. Of space, time, etc.

Again, just commenting.

I'm a software developer, a gamer, and I do graphics work and I also have moved most of my movies, TV, books, etc. into digital form. So yes. The only reason this machine doesn't have another 1 TB is the caddy that was supposed to let me install a HDD into the optical drive slot didn't work.

With the enclosures and machines hanging about my place, I probably have 18-24 TB of varies storage and I forget if that includes the new ASUSTOR Raid-1 Config running 2 x 4 TB WD Red Plus drives. So yeah, I have lots of data - and some replicated. There is an lot of redundancy but I'm working to rationalize that.

To get the space that's on the two drives, I've had to split my Steam games library between various machines and move a lot of stuff off the laptop. I really could have used that second gig if the optical bay install had worked out....

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dalchina said:

And similarly, why is partition 2 designated a Recovery partition?
What do you get if you use the command
reagentc /info
at an admin command prompt?

This should tell you the partition used. (@ 100MB partition 2 should be your EFI partition)

EFI and Recovery are just designations- if all is functioning as it should be, fine I suppose, however any upgrade may cause problems as a new recovery partition would normally be created after C:

Ask MSI. That's the way it was on the original hard disk. I replaced with SSD and the tech that did the migration to Win 10 at the same time.

I just purchased an MSI Codex R Desktop (i5-10400, 32 Gb or 2400 RAM, nVidia 1660 OC with 6 Gb of DDR5) and it has a very similar sort of installation (at least I recall the 100 Mb partition is the same size, I'll have to check its other partition for recovery). I think it is 17.52 Gb and it actually allows Bios Recovery (at least on the Codex Desktop... it might be something similar on my laptop.

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dalchina said:

And similarly, why is partition 2 designated a Recovery partition?
What do you get if you use the command
reagentc /info
at an admin command prompt?

This should tell you the partition used. (@ 100MB partition 2 should be your EFI partition)

EFI and Recovery are just designations- if all is functioning as it should be, fine I suppose, however any upgrade may cause problems as a new recovery partition would normally be created after C:

C:\>reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition3\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 2baa4591-27e8-11ea-a34c-823ee5a82598
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

dalchina said:

Hmm, to me that suggests this is actually MBR not UEFI, and the large initial Recovery partition is a manufacturer's factory reset partition- albeit a bit smaller than some. That could make sense as this was upgraded from Win 7.

It doesn't say UEFI and I'm not even sure if the 2011-2012 models of like my GE 70 0ND would have supported UEFI. My wife's MSI gaming laptop I got her for her Xmas 2019 does, but that's 7-8 years after the fact. It may in fact be MBR. And I'm not feeling like these disks are GPT either, but I might have missed that.

I am running a backup via Macrium Reflect 7's 'Disk Backup' setting to a 1 TB HDD in an external enclosure. Hopefully that will give me enough safety, but I'll try to setup a save point (or whatever they call them now) and then we'll try some of the recovery options.

If all else fails, as long as I have a Windows license for the machine for Windows 10 (or Windows 7), then I ought to be able to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch if I download the right media. (I'm not even sure this one didn't come out of a 32 bit installation of Win 7... all my later systems were all 64 bit when they were Windows 7 but this laptop has been around (and I still am very fond of it - the steel series keyboard, great audio, and the 17" screen are still favs of mine).

dalchina said:

It appears to have driver support to Win 8 64 bits

MSI Global

You get a clearer picture of your disks using a 3rd party partition manager.

There is no guarantee with older systems that continuing upgrades of Win 10 will not result in problems.

I get that... for example, I'm pretty sure my older laptop won't support the virtualization stuff, but I don't use that, so no big deal. But if, as was posted in this thread, 20H2 has the same hardware reqs as 2004, I ought to be able to at least make that step.

Traditionally, I'd go on about a 3-4 year cycle with the plan of buy the 75-80% point in the market and then keep the machine for 6-8 years (so on year 3-4, I'd replace a desktop, then the next 3-4 point was the laptop, rinse repeat so every 4 years I'm buying one somewhat expensive good bang for the buck machine). Most of the time in past (XP, Win 7), I got long service lives our of the machines without the hardware ever being an issue because when I bought, I made sure the unreplaceable things (mobo, built in stuff like screen, keyboard, etc) were solid and good performance. That has usually given longevity to most machines. This one is pushing the envelope, but once I had a wife and kid, their machines had to go in that cycle and that's lengthened it a bit and also the pandemic... so I'd rather not replace my laptop until 2022 late or 2023 early.

So I'm just trying to buy time. This is not a great time for me to try to replace my development laptop. And I do want security updates and the like.

I have done a Macrium 'Disk Backup'. I'm going to also manually move some things off the machine as a secondary caution (I've know backup systems to fail especially for the new user) and then it'll be time to run the scripts and see where we go. I expect to complete the moving off of stuff today or Monday at the latest.

With the data secure, and license codes and so on, and having recorded the system info and so on so that I have the data easily to hand, I'll try the suggestions made on this forum topic and see what happens.

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kaladorn said:

I get that... for example, I'm pretty sure my older laptop won't support the virtualization stuff, but I don't use that, so no big deal. But if, as was posted in this thread, 20H2 has the same hardware reqs as 2004, I ought to be able to at least make that step.

Traditionally, I'd go on about a 3-4 year cycle with the plan of buy the 75-80% point in the market and then keep the machine for 6-8 years (so on year 3-4, I'd replace a desktop, then the next 3-4 point was the laptop, rinse repeat so every 4 years I'm buying one somewhat expensive good bang for the buck machine). Most of the time in past (XP, Win 7), I got long service lives our of the machines without the hardware ever being an issue because when I bought, I made sure the unreplaceable things (mobo, built in stuff like screen, keyboard, etc) were solid and good performance. That has usually given longevity to most machines. This one is pushing the envelope, but once I had a wife and kid, their machines had to go in that cycle and that's lengthened it a bit and also the pandemic... so I'd rather not replace my laptop until 2022 late or 2023 early.

So I'm just trying to buy time. This is not a great time for me to try to replace my development laptop. And I do want security updates and the like.

I have done a Macrium 'Disk Backup'. I'm going to also manually move some things off the machine as a secondary caution (I've know backup systems to fail especially for the new user) and then it'll be time to run the scripts and see where we go. I expect to complete the moving off of stuff today or Monday at the latest.

With the data secure, and license codes and so on, and having recorded the system info and so on so that I have the data easily to hand, I'll try the suggestions made on this forum topic and see what happens.

And until this oddity with Win 10 not showing the 20H2 update... I've had zero problems with any Win 10 updates or with the system.