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I think we can now all agree: Microsoft MSFT +0.00%’s hardline policy on Windows 10’s forced updates is silly. Very silly. Since launching nine days ago Windows Update has sent out an unstable graphics driver which switched off monitors, a buggy security patch which corrupted Windows Explorer and there are now widespread reports that a third update is causing Window 10 machines to crash over and over again…
The patch in question is KB3081424 (ironically enough a roll-up of bug fixes) and during its update process affected users find it fails and triggers the message: “We couldn’t complete the updates, undoing the changes.” Undoing them results in a mandatory system reboot, but as soon as the user logs back on Windows 10’s update process kicks in and tries to install KB3081424 again.
I’m sure you’re way ahead of me here, but since Windows 10 updates cannot be stopped KB3081424 tries to install over and over again which leaves systems caught in endless reboot loops.
Why wouldn’t KB3081424 eventually install correctly? Because the initial failed install has been found to create a bad entry in the Windows 10 registry which stops its subsequent attempts to reinstall from working correctly.
Windows 10 will be great, but it needs more time – Image credit Microsoft
What To Do?
The good news is, despite Windows 10’s best efforts, some industrious users have found a temporary fix to get rid of this bad registry entry. So before KB3081424 tries to install again quickly follow these instructions:
- Type “regedit” in the Start menu
- In the window that opens navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
- Backup your registry key as what you’re about to do is risky (with ProfileList highlighted, click File and Export and choose a backup name)
- Then scan through the ProfileList IDs and delete any with ProfileImagePath found in it as it shouldn’t be there
- Close regedit, reboot and next time KB3081424 should install properly
This method should clear out the bad registry entry and since not every user is impacted by the KB3081424 bug, the odds are on your side that it will be second time lucky now the bad reg entry has gone.
And no, at the time of writing, sadly the tool Microsoft released to stop certain updates from reinstalling does not work with this patch. Hopefully that will change soon along with a Microsoft official comment on the problem and its plans for a fix.
All of which teaches a valuable lesson…
