7742 and something broke big time

[pmikep]

UPDATE:

Looks like the nut behind the wheel. (My fault.) I'll report later. It's 2 am here. Way past my bed time.)

I started NTLite today and it offered to auto update to 7742.

I let it. (Which I never do. I usually make a copy of my old NTLite directory to get back to where I was in case something goes wrong.)

Then I used the updated version to remove a few items from Win10 20H2 after installing a small KB.

Now I cannot open NTLite, Autoruns, Services, etc.

The error message says "The service cannot be started."

Etwas ist los. (From my high-school German.)

It's like I can't execute executables.

Here are the few things that I removed that broke Windows.

<c>axinstall 'ActiveX Installer Service'</c>
<c>captureservice 'Capture Service'</c>
<c>desktopimgdownldr 'Desktop image downloader'</c>
<c>flashactivex 'Adobe Flash for Internet Explorer'</c>
<c>flashactivex32 'Adobe Flash for Internet Explorer - 32 bit'</c>
<c>unp 'Universal Notification Platform (UNP)'</c>
<c>xbox 'Xbox App'</c>

Perhaps there's something that I shouldn't have removed?

 

[pmikep]

Oops - my fault. I'll plan to edit this post in the morning with the details. (Still, some possible insights for NTLite removals.)

 

[nuhi]

OK, I'm waiting on more info, but in the meantime try Source - Tools - Remove Reinstalls to clean what KB might have half-returned.
If NTLite cannot run, I never saw that, I'm interested in how if you found out.

Thanks.

 

[pmikep]

Okay, a long story of woe that I'll try to make entertaining, since I can't make it short.

This is a story of trying to do a Host Refresh on Win 10 19042 (a.k.a. 20H2) and the (self-induced) problems that I ran in to.

I've said before that you can be too thin when you try to thin out Windows. In this case, I starved Windows of needed ingredients for a healthy Host Refresh.

Or another analogy: I painted myself into many corners and had to find my way out.

In this story there are three versions of Win10: 19042.572, .631, and .685. For ease of readability, I'm going to call .572 the Base. I'll call .631 the Intermediate. .685 is the Final.

As background, I was trying to do a Host Refresh of my Base. But setup.exe would not let me keep my files and apps when I tried to refresh Base with Base. Not even if I tried to refresh with the next higher version, Intermediate. As nuhi has said, one needs to install a Cumulative Update (KB4592438) before setup.exe will let one keep their files and apps. (And one has to install a new Service Stack before the CU. But I'll skip over this detail and assume you know this already.)

So I started by installing the Cumulative Update to my Base.

It did not complete. After a few reboots, Windows said that it Could not Complete the update and was rolling back.

My fault.

In addition to the fact that I had turned off some necessary services in Base, I also had SledgeHammer installed. (SledgeHammer disables Window's Update.)

I'll talk about the services later. But as it goes to SledgeHammer: I was smart enough to set SledgeHammer to "Temporarily Enable Window's Update Service" while installing the Service Stack and the CU. But I didn't realize that this was only temporary. When SledgeHammer is installed, it installs some tasks in Task Scheduler, which disable Window's Update Service on reboot.

So one problem I was running in to was that the CU couldn't complete after reboot because WU had been disabled. And it so it was trying to roll back.

Even though the CU didn't complete, Base showed that my version was now Final. And I was able to refresh to Intermediate and keep my files and apps.

But, unknown to me, the crippled install and roll back (crippled by SledgeHammer) broke Windows.

I discovered this when I ran NTLite Live to do some minor removals of my refreshed Win10. (See my post above.) After these removals I was locked out of running execuables! So, ironically, running NTLite prevented me from running NTLite!

Since I couldn't run NTLite to fix this via Host Refresh, there was no way out of this corner except to restore a previous image of Base.

After restoring Base, I uninstalled SledgeHammer. (And I pulled my Ethernet cable so that Windows couldn't update.)

But another problem was that I had used AutoRuns to disable two Push Notification Services, WpnService and WpnUserService.

(I notice now that one can disable all three wpn services in NTLite. (Search for wpn in the filter box.) I am now wondering if this should be allowed. Or if there should be a warning? (I think, but do not know, that these services are needed for the Start menu to work.) Someone should do some testing here. (But not me.))

I re-enabled those services.

With those changes back toward normal, the CU ran and completed on Base.

"Good," I thought. "Now I can run NTLite offline on Intermediate iso and use the iso to Refresh Base."

But at this point, I realized that I was working on an iteration of Base that I didn't want to use. So I stopped and restored an earlier image of Base and started this process again.

At this point, it was late at night and I had lost my train of thought. I uninstalled SledgeHammer, re-enabled the push services, but I forgot to install the CU on Base.

But I did install the CU on Intermediate, bringing it up to Final.

But that wouldn't let me keep my files and apps when I ran setup.exe.

I had to slipstream the CU on Base.

And I think that ends this story. (There were some components that reappeared after the refresh, but I'll post about those in other threads.)