Watch your install run, by opening a shift-F10 CMD window

garlin

Moderator
Staff member
More than a few users know about shift-F10 during WinPE, to open CMD and run commands like FDISK, copy drivers and other files around.

I forgot you can run CMD while Windows install is running, after the first reboot. Curious why your install is slow? Run taskmgr, or resmon and see if your setup is doing absolutely nothing, or just hitting the system really hard. Resmon will report what files are being touched, which is much easier to read than digging around DISM, CBS, or WindowsUpdate logs.
 
I include other programs such as process monitor and process explorer from sysinternals to use in that environment, extremely useful for troubleshooting.
 
It's fascinating how many different processes or installs compete for CPU/disk overhead.

For example, install .NET, MSE and a few live updates in row. .NET triggers ngen to force rebuild the .NET caches (high CPU/disk), MSE downloads its signatures and begins real-time protection, and DISM activity wakes up WU for updates. And search indexer runs in the background...

Based on what I learned, temporary stopped MSE, WU & BITS services and made ngen update synchronously. Post-setup runs more efficiently now, still pegged but not clobbering each other.
 
Back
Top