geekhack Community > Other Geeky Stuff

Somehow My Windows 10 Installation Was 2 Years Out of Date

(1/2) > >>

Kavik:
When I installed the Battlefield 2042 Beta, I was greeted with an error saying my Windows build was too old, which I thought was weird since I routinely check for updates.

However, upon further investigation, I found my Window 10 Pro installation was on version 1909 (build 18042.xx or something) which is from 2019. I suppose that would explain why half the updates I tried to install always failed. I had to manually download and install version 21H1 which took about an hour and a half. I have no idea how Windows 10 versioning works, but apparently 1909 wasn't end of life yet but wasn't receiving regular updates. I suppose keeping an old version like this is for enterprise customers who need tighter version control to prevent breaking things. I don't know why my home computer didn't give me the option to install it through regular updates.

Interestingly, clicking through the error on Battlefield allowed me to play the game before updating my OS, so it apparently didn't rely on anything in the updates to run.

A few years ago, a friend had a similar issue with Windows 8. He had a ton of pop-ups and unwanted browser (and extensions thereof) and generally slow performance IIRC, and I couldn't even run a malware scanner or run updates, and it turned out it was because he'd missed a major update and couldn't download it via the normal update process. I had to scan for malware pre-boot and install the update manually, which took several hours.

Is there a good way to stay on top of this? I just assumed running Windows updates regularly would handle everything.

fohat.digs:

--- Quote from: Kavik on Sun, 10 October 2021, 10:29:00 ---
download and install version 21H1 which took about an hour and a half


--- End quote ---

My memory may be distorted, but I seem to remember Windows asking to install 21H1 several times in recent months. Every time I have allowed it, and gone through the whole download/install/restart process, with seeming success. My original OS build was 19043 from spring 2020.

I have checked About/System in the Control Panel several times and found it there, yet a few weeks later it will act like it has to do it all again. If my memory is accurate, I would guess that I have done this at least 3-4 times in the past 3-4 months.

Leslieann:
There was an update around that time that if you missed or was rejected for some reason, compatibility or something, you would stop getting most updates.
I don't remember too many of the details but that souns like what may have happened.

This is another issue I have with forced updates, once out of the hands of users they will just assume it's working as intended.
The problem is corporations seem to take the same attitude with software and such. mark my words, some major corporation is going to completely bite the dust due to this attitude. The system will go down, the A.I. will say it's fine and they will just go about business as if everything is working until they completely collapse financially.

Kavik:
My mom's computer had the same issue. It was on 1909, and I had to manually upgrade it too. Now that you mention it, I do recall the previous version, 20H1, trying to install on her computer several times and failing over a long period of time. In fact, it tried and failed again when I booted it up to install 21H1.

Given Leslieann's take on this, I guess I just need to investigate more thoroughly when something fails in the future.

Thanks for the input.

fohat.digs:
Yesterday I got a message that my computer was not "ready" for Windows 11.

It was a solid fresh clean build from a year and a half ago with strong hardware components and a legit Windows 10 retail install, updated regularly since.

Can I realistically ignore 11 for the foreseeable future? Will it be a while before I will be forced to accept it?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page