My Windows 10 Upgrade Experience - Debugging

This post is a continuation of my previous posts on this subject:

1. My Windows 10 Upgrade experience
2. My Windows 10 Upgrade Experience - Day 2

To summarize:

I started out with Windows 7 Professional running on Dell Latitude E6510. I used the media creation tool to upgrade to Windows 10. The upgrade process was THE most smoothest experience with any Windows upgrade that I have ever experienced. However at the end of the process, I had a few anxious moments when I saw that Windows was not activated. However that was simply due to some slow servers and Windows successfully activated in a couple of hours.

As part of my customization of my Windows 10 installation, I switched from Microsoft Live Account to a local account and in settings I turned off tablet mode as my laptop did not have a touch-screen. That's when I ran into some pretty serious issues. After a reboot, I was no longer able to login to my PC either with my Microsoft Live Account or my local account. I had to resort to using my Windows 10 DVD in order to hack my way back into the system.

Finally after restoring things, I noticed that the icon for Edge browser had disappeared from my taskbar and clicking on the icon for Microsoft Store produced an error. All my Modern UI Apps disappeared and using the start menu resulted in a critical error that needed me to restart. Moreover this error persisted through multiple reboots. I then installed Start10, a start menu alternative, so that I could continue to use my laptop and debug it.

Debug Steps

Step 1:

The first step was to use an old favorite called SFC (System File Checker) that checks for the presence of and the integrity of critical system files and install/repairs them.

SFC is run in an elevated command prompt window which means you need to run CMD as an administrator. Next type the command:

sfc /scannow

This command starts the scanning and repairing of your system files. It is advisable to run this process a couple of times until no errors are being reported.

Result:

After this step, my Start Menu no longer crashed but it popped up an error about "AppXManifest.xml" file.

Step 2:

Searching for the above error brought me to a post on Microsoft Insider for Windows 10 preview that suggested forcing a reinstall of the Apps to turn off the development mode.  The steps are reproduced below:

First backup any data you’ve saved in the Modern Apps (full screen ones) as all of them will be re-installed. Desktop software won’t be affected though.

1. Press Windows Key + R on your keyboard.
2. Key in PowerShell and hit Enter.
3. Right click on the PowerShell icon on the taskbar and select Run as Administrator.
4. Now paste the following command in the Administrator: Windows PowerShell window and press Enter key:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

1. Wait for PowerShell to execute and complete the command. Ignore the few errors (in red color) that may pop up.
2. When it finishes, try hitting Start and hopefully it’ll start working.
3. Restart computer once it’s done.

Result:

In my case, the Start Menu started to work once again and The Microsoft store App also appeared to work and in a few minutes my Modern UI Apps also re-appeared.

Step 3:

Next to restore Edge. I opened Settings (WindowsKey + I) and then System->Default Apps.

Next reset to Microsoft recommended defaults by clicking on the Reset button at the bottom of the page. Ensure that the default Web Browser is Microsoft Edge.

Next create or save an html page on the desktop and click on it. This should trigger the launch of the Edge browser. However, in my case I kept getting an invalid registry setting error.

Next I opened file explorer and drilled down to C:\Windows\SystemApps. I could see that Microsoft Edge folder was present [On my system the path is C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe ] and upon opening it I could see the Microsoft Edge executable file. Running the executable however would not open Edge. A blue screen flashed briefly and disappeared.

At this point I noticed that Cortana had reappeared and appeared to be working and I fired it up. It immediately demanded a Microsoft Live account and so I simply gave up and signed on. Now while I was scrolling through my Modern UI Apps, I noticed that Microsoft Edge was listed and clicking on it brought up the browser. I re-pinned it to taskbar and Start Menu and my system was back!

However I haven't rebooted the system yet. No idea what will happen once I revert back to my local account if possible and do the other customizations as before. Keeping my fingers crossed ...

Stay tuned to my next post ...