Windows 10 reinstall
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Brace yourself, this is going to be long.
My instance of Windows 10 worked flawlessly and I was quite happy with W10. What forced me to do a reinstall is W10 insatiable lust for disk space. Office installs only on C:, Visual Studio installs only on C:, package cache grows with every update, windows installer leftovers can't be touched or systems stops working. Even temp folder is no longer temporary - you can't purge it, or random programs can't be uninstalled or even updated.
So, it seems that 120GB SSD is too small for my needs (I use more than a browser for facebook and youtube, stupid me).Right, so I bit the bullet and bought a new shiny 525GB SSD (Crucial). Because my last installation was an upgrade from W7, I figured a clean install would be best - upgraded system, moved to new drive? Clean install must be better, right?
Install wizard done its job quickly, as annoying as it is, with the whole 'wait for W10 glory, while I do stuff I won't tell you about'. I logged in, expecting the same experience as last time, perhaps with slightly better performance due to stripping W7 leftovers. Alas, there were some bumps waiting for me on the way:
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Please partition and format your drive, so it's not accessible [solved]
Windows installer insisted that my former system drive (120GB SSD) is drive 0, although I switched it to SATA bay 1 and plugged in the new drive to bay 0. Ok, I don't care. During istallation, of course I chose drive 1 as target installation drive and formatted drive 0. After logging in - no sign of the old drive connected. Had to use Disk Management console to make it visible. WTF? -
You're not the man you used to be [solved]
On my new system, my user account is the same as last time. Or so it seemed to me. User name is the same, email address is the same, it's connected to the same MS account. But somehow windows thinks that my old files are not mine. I had to 'take ownership' of every single file and folder on my storage drives. It was easy with normal files (although it takes ages to complete), but took a lot of clicking through 'security' dialogs for stuff like Music and Documents. -
I installed some updates [solved]
10 minutes after installation, windows decided to install updates. Of course. Apart from installing essential programs like Candy Crush Saga, updates killed the start menu, action center and taskbar. Running programs are displayed on the taskbar, action center shows number of notifications and start menu button is still there, just clicking any of those does nothing. After 20 minutes of googling, I ran PowerShell incantation that reinstalls some stuff (I don't care), and things wen't back to normal.
No, restarting, running win update or any of numerous 'troubleshooting wizards' did not help. -
You can have some of your stuff where you want [works as intended]
Moving Documents, Music, Downloads, etc, to the old SSD worked on first try and everything seems to work as it should. No, really. -
You can have all your stuff where you want [no, it's a lie]
Having stuff like Videos where I wanted, I tried to move user data folders - Local, LocalLow and Roaming. When you open properties for any of those, there's a Location tab, that let's you move it, or so it tells you:
- some files and folders won't be moved, as they are locked, running processes tied to your user
- if you're logged in on different account, you can't move those folders
- after a restart, new location is set, but windows still writes some stuff to old location. Not everything, just some of it.
I moved it all back.
- You can have Candy Crush Saga, but not Todoist [unsolved]
Useless universal apps, like Candy Crush or Minecraft install flawlessly, even without my knowledge. But stuff that I want to purposefully install from the store (like Todoist) fail with 0x80070005 error. I went through 10-15 different procedures to fix it and it's still the same. Crazy security/ownership settings of folders tied to windows store are worthy of their own thread. It makes no sense whatsoever, and seems to be impossible to fix.
I have most of my stuff back, stuff I use directly at least, Visual Studio works as it should and I can play Dishonored 2 without hickups (apart form 'Todoist failed to install' every 15 minutes). So this is a success story, I suppose.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
After logging in - no sign of the old drive connected. Had to use Disk Management console to make it visible. WTF?
This is normal, long term Windows installer behavior, and frankly the most correct behavior. Unless you tell Windows during setup to configure a partition on a drive, it will not try to create a partition on the drive or otherwise mount the drive during setup, waiting until you can use Disk Management during the full OS to tell it how to handle the drive (assign it a letter, reformat it, etc etc).
@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
But somehow windows thinks that my old files are not mine. I had to 'take ownership' of every single file and folder on my storage drives.
Local accounts (even via a Microsoft account) have Security Identifiers (SIDs) that are based on the install GUID of the system. Installing a new system and recreating the same account names will result in different SIDs, since they were created in different systems. Most other major applications (Microsoft SQL server) also behave this way - and that should be the most expected behavior, in my opinion, so someone can't just set up a different SQL server and suddenly impersonate all your users with the password of the new server (thus bypassing having to know the password on the old server). Obviously, for a local installation, physical access is root access and you can easily bypass the security to regain control of your files.
@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
But stuff that I want to purposefully install from the store (like Todoist) fail with 0x80070005 error.
Hrm, that error is "access is denied"... I wonder if something funky happened with the permissions of your AppData folders when you moved them around. Can you install any other Windows Store app that you install by "choice" (as opposed to the ones WU "helps" you with)?
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_store/cant-install-apps-from-store-error-0x80070005/1da61861-26ee-41b4-ada9-8ac516b0107a?auth=1 Applies to Windows 8, but might be relevant for Windows 10 (might not be, YMMV...)
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@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
This is normal, long term Windows installer behavior, and frankly the most correct behavior. Unless you tell Windows during setup to configure a partition on a drive, it will not try to create a partition on the drive or otherwise mount the drive during setup, waiting until you can use Disk Management during the full OS to tell it how to handle the drive (assign it a letter, reformat it, etc etc).
I deleted old partition, created new one and formatted it.
After installation the drive was not visible and there was no indication that it's connected at all. If this is correct behavior, it surely is not intuitive.Local accounts (even via a Microsoft account) have Security Identifiers (SIDs) that are based on the install GUID of the system. Installing a new system and recreating the same account names will result in different SIDs, since they were created in different systems. Most other major applications (Microsoft SQL server) also behave this way - and that should be the most expected behavior, in my opinion, so someone can't just set up a different SQL server and suddenly impersonate all your users with the password of the new server (thus bypassing having to know the password on the old server). Obviously, for a local installation, physical access is root access and you can easily bypass the security to regain control of your files.
Why do I have to 'regain' access if I'm the user that created those files, plus I'm the system administrator that can take ownership with two clicks? Why the 'access denied' stupidity, it makes no sense.
Hrm, that error is "access is denied"... I wonder if something funky happened with the permissions of your AppData folders when you moved them around. Can you install any other Windows Store app that you install by "choice" (as opposed to the ones WU "helps" you with)?
No, it happened before I moved AppData folders.
Applies to Windows 8, but might be relevant for Windows 10 (might not be, YMMV...)
There's a new version of this troubleshooter, for W10. It didn't help.
Bonus problem: Directory Opus doesn't open when I click its icon on the task bar. It worked an hour ago and it still opens when I click the tray icon. My bet is on 'updates were installed'.
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@MrL
Because you're not the same user. You're SECONDWINDOWSINSTALL\MrL, not FIRSTWINDOWSINSTALL\MrL. Microsoft accounts aren't a security domain, they're just a shared credential that gets "synchronized" with your local account.I'm not a Windows Store user at all, so I can't really speak to anything other than just regurgitating links I find on Google, sorry :(
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@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@MrL
Because you're not the same user. You're SECONDWINDOWSINSTALL\MrL, not FIRSTWINDOWSINSTALL\MrL. Microsoft accounts aren't a security domain, they're just a shared credential that gets "synchronized" with your local account.I understand that. And I think it's stupid, annoying and pointless.
I'm not a Windows Store user at all, so I can't really speak to anything other than just regurgitating links I find on Google, sorry :(
AFAIK googling blindly with error code and applying random suggestions from forums is the official way of solving windows store problems.
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@MrL The best way of solving Windows Store problems is to not use Windows Store.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
And I think it's stupid, annoying and pointless.
Please suggest a better way to do that? Or should every user named "Bob" be equivalent for security purposes?
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
You're not the man you used to be [solved]
On my new system, my user account is the same as last time. Or so it seemed to me. User name is the same, email address is the same, it's connected to the same MS account. But somehow windows thinks that my old files are not mine. I had to 'take ownership' of every single file and folder on my storage drives. It was easy with normal files (although it takes ages to complete), but took a lot of clicking through 'security' dialogs for stuff like Music and Documents.Says "Vista" but works... use registry file at bottom of article and then right click folder and "Take Ownership".
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Take-Ownership-Menu-Hacks.zip
"Take Ownership" is useful in all kinds of situations... and having it on the right click drop down is super-de-duper handy-dandy.
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- You can have Candy Crush Saga, but not Todoist [unsolved]
Useless universal apps, like Candy Crush or Minecraft install flawlessly, even without my knowledge. But stuff that I want to purposefully install from the store (like Todoist) fail with 0x80070005 error. I went through 10-15 different procedures to fix it and it's still the same. Crazy security/ownership settings of folders tied to windows store are worthy of their own thread. It makes no sense whatsoever, and seems to be impossible to fix.
The one unwritten rule that continually bites me is: UAC... have you disabled UAC? Windows Store shits all over me if I disable it... enable UAC, Windows Firewall and Defender (I think all three? Shrug) and see if that changes anything.
- You can have Candy Crush Saga, but not Todoist [unsolved]
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Also: check if Windows Store user has access to whatever's the location of Windows Store apps. Can't remember exact paths and names off the top of my head, but I remember having that exact error caused by that folder being read-only to everyone including Administrator account.
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@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Windows Store shits all over me if I disable it...
As it should. It should also evict you from the PC while it's at it.
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@sloosecannon said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Windows Store shits all over me if I disable it...
As it should. It should also evict you from the PC while it's at it.
I'm not saying I disagree... but I don't recall anywhere specifically that says "When you disable UAC, Windows Store won't work".
Windows, with all their wonder error messages, doesn't exactly help track down these types of issues (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread)
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@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@sloosecannon said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Windows Store shits all over me if I disable it...
As it should. It should also evict you from the PC while it's at it.
I'm not saying I disagree... but I don't recall anywhere specifically that says "When you disable UAC, Windows Store won't work".
Windows, with all their wonder error messages, doesn't exactly help track down these types of issues (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread)
Hah, you're not wrong either. The fact that it breaks the store in mysterious ways is definitely a
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@Erufael said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@MrL The best way of solving Windows Store problems is to not use Windows Store.
Funny thing is, it works without problems on mobile, but shits itself right after clean windows install on desktop
@sloosecannon said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Please suggest a better way to do that? Or should every user named "Bob" be equivalent for security purposes?
How about not denying access to administrators, who can open everything anyway.
@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Says "Vista" but works... use registry file at bottom of article and then right click folder and "Take Ownership".
Thanks, that will be useful.
The one unwritten rule that continually bites me is: UAC... have you disabled UAC? Windows Store shits all over me if I disable it... enable UAC, Windows Firewall and Defender (I think all three? Shrug) and see if that changes anything.
Nope, although I'm tempted to do it. Resisting the urge so far.
@Gąska said in Windows 10 reinstall:
Also: check if Windows Store user has access to whatever's the location of Windows Store apps. Can't remember exact paths and names off the top of my head, but I remember having that exact error caused by that folder being read-only to everyone including Administrator account.
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps :) And yes, something is seriously wrong with its settings. Will investigate.
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I also completely reformatted and reinstalled for the Creators' Update.
- sounds normal to me. I actually had to remove the drive label for my SD card reader because I never use it and I hate misbehaving programs that mysteriously ask you to insert a disk and then don't actually care before they start up.
- I've never had an external NTFS drive before, so I don't know how common this is, but this is why permissions shouldn't be part of the filesystem.
- E_NO_REPRO.
- Don't forget to create symlinks at the original locations pointing to the new locations for misbehaving apps that will actually recreate the folders at the original location if they are not there.
- Ah I wondered how that would work - sounds exactly as broken as I thought. Why don't they make it so it happens during restart? That would make too much sense, I guess.
- Yeah I found that having the Store app open while uninstalling Candy Crush et al. helps to keep them off the machine permanently. Otherwise next time Store wakes up and sees installed apps missing it just reinstalls them. I have never had issues installing apps from the Windows Store, but I have also never had a second/external drive.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
How about not denying access to administrators, who can open everything anyway.
They're not denying access to administrators. That's why you get a UAC prompt when you go to edit the permissions of the file.
As of Windows Vista, your "administrator" account is only an administrator when you specifically apply elevated permissions, just like Mac. It was the best compromise they could make between best practices and what everyone did and what XP era programs implicitly required.
And,
for added securitybecause the shell and the file browser are so entangled they couldn't separate them, they made it so that Windows Explorer can never elevate. So you can't open someone else's files in Windows Explorer, because you can never have Windows Explorer open as an administrator. But you can open the file properties as an administrator and give your sub-administrator account permissions to the files.
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@LB_ said in Windows 10 reinstall:
- Ah I wondered how that would work - sounds exactly as broken as I thought. Why don't they make it so it happens during restart? That would make too much sense, I guess.
That would make it less broken, but after moving windows still writes some stuff to the old location, so the whole thing is pointless anyway.
@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
How about not denying access to administrators, who can open everything anyway.
They're not denying access to administrators. That's why you get a UAC prompt when you go to edit the permissions of the file.
As of Windows Vista, your "administrator" account is only an administrator when you specifically apply elevated permissions, just like Mac. It was the best compromise they could make between best practices and what everyone did and what XP era programs implicitly required.
And,
for added securitybecause the shell and the file browser are so entangled they couldn't separate them, they made it so that Windows Explorer can never elevate. So you can't open someone else's files in Windows Explorer, because you can never have Windows Explorer open as an administrator. But you can open the file properties as an administrator and give your sub-administrator account permissions to the files.So in short, yes, they are denying access to administrators. I can't open files from old installation, because Explorer can't elevate.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
So in short, yes, they are denying access to administrators. I can't open files from old installation, because Explorer can't elevate.
I'd say it's less of an "intentional denial for security purposes" and more like "eh, we're really too lazy to make this work properly because it would involve un-ass-ifying our file system browser."
I've also had massive permission problems with an external drive which was also read by a Linux Mint install at one point. Had to re-enable all read/write permissions on all of the files a few times, even ones which I did not access. I don't really understand how, because I never change the permissions when I'm browsing in Linux and it's just meant to be a plug-and-play repository for movies and games and stuff. Hilariously enough, there were never permissions issues in Mint when I wanted to read or write to the drive from there.
That wasn't W10 though. I think it was W8 at the time, definitely my most short lived Windows install.
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@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Take-Ownership-Menu-Hacks.zip
"Take Ownership" is useful in all kinds of situations... and having it on the right click drop down is super-de-duper handy-dandy.
Meh, there's already a lot on the context menu though, and I certainly wouldn't download any files to my machine to fix a one-time problem.
Takeown /f <old user directory> /r /d Y. NEXT!
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@heterodox said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Take-Ownership-Menu-Hacks.zip
"Take Ownership" is useful in all kinds of situations... and having it on the right click drop down is super-de-duper handy-dandy.
Meh, there's already a lot on the context menu though, and I certainly wouldn't download any files to my machine to fix a one-time problem.
Takeown /f <old user directory> /r /d Y. NEXT!
It's an often enough problem for me that it's part of my toolchain.
If I'm on someone else's computer... the command line works... if I'm in my environment or a work environment I use daily? What's one more thing in the context menu.
Also: The command exists to remove it from the menu for those situations as well.
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@WernerCD said in Windows 10 reinstall:
If I'm on someone else's computer... the command line works... if I'm in my environment or a work environment I use daily?
Indeed. I was referring more to the OP's use case.
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I actually was really entertained by the install media for the creators update, with Cortana running the whole installation, with voice recognition working during the process.
The only problem it gave me was on a machine that didn't get a clean install, and broke my graphics drivers until I went and installed new ones.
But I've never heard of an external drive acting like that at all, and I've had a huge number of those that I swap out randomly. Admittedly I don't try to lock things down on them usually.
The creepiest thing was that after formatting, Edge on a fresh install logged me into google automatically.
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@sloosecannon now that they tied your login to an email, it's more similar to a domain account than a local computer one... I agree that if you tied to an email it should be able to grant access for the email-based account to anything that email could access before.
i guess they didn't bother completing their half-assed plan with the email connection.
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@Magus said in Windows 10 reinstall:
eepiest thing was that after formatting, Edge on a fresh install logged me into google autom
Microsoft account stores Edge favs and passwords?
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@Helix Yep. And it defaults to having your documents folders be onedrive folders, so you typically have all of those too.
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@Magus said in Windows 10 reinstall:
The creepiest thing was that after formatting, Edge on a fresh install logged me into google automatically.
That sort of "creepy" feeling is why I still don't use a Microsoft account on Windows 10 yet.
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@heterodox I kind of like it, though. Much lower setup time.
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@Magus
And you can feel good knowing you've saved the NSA the time and trouble of hacking into your computer, they can just get the information they need straight from their direct feed from Micro$oft HQ
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@Magus said in Windows 10 reinstall:
The creepiest thing was that after formatting, Edge on a fresh install logged me into google automatically.
I wonder how that even works? I can't reproduce it here. Edge doesn't even sync browser extensions for me. I have all syncing options everywhere enabled.
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@LB_ No idea.
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@darkmatter said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@sloosecannon now that they tied your login to an email, it's more similar to a domain account than a local computer one... I agree that if you tied to an email it should be able to grant access for the email-based account to anything that email could access before.
i guess they didn't bother completing their half-assed plan with the email connection.
That's.... a fair point, actually.
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@darkmatter said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@sloosecannon now that they tied your login to an email
You don't have to use an e-mail address as your logon. Microsoft tries to make you think that you do, and each new release of Windows changes the installer a bit so that it's harder to find the option to use a regular username instead of a Microsoft e-mail account. But its still there.
Hell, I don't even use my real name as the username on my home computer that nobody ever sees except me.
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@El_Heffe said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@sloosecannon now that they tied your login to an email
fake quote attribution warning ;)
also, I know you don't have to (I avoided it), but if you have, as the OP says he did, then why can't it actually work like one would have expected? Terrible programming, screaming LET US STEAL YOUR PRIVACY WE WONT EVEN MAKE IT WORK IN A SENSIBLE WAY BECAUSE WE JUST WANT YOUR PRIVATE INFO.
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@MrL You misspelled Wondows :P
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See, you wouldn't have most of these problems if your OS enforced proper app and data encapsulation.
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@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@Magus
And you can feel good knowing you've saved the NSA the time and trouble of hacking into your computer, they can just get the information they need straight from their direct feed from Micro$oft HQSo... that's a win-win, right?
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@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
hacking into your computer
pfft. They'll just ask your ISP anyway.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
- You can have all your stuff where you want [no, it's a lie]
Having stuff like Videos where I wanted, I tried to move user data folders - Local, LocalLow and Roaming. When you open properties for any of those, there's a Location tab, that let's you move it, or so it tells you:
- some files and folders won't be moved, as they are locked, running processes tied to your user
- if you're logged in on different account, you can't move those folders
- after a restart, new location is set, but windows still writes some stuff to old location. Not everything, just some of it.
I moved it all back.
Have you tried doing this in Safe Mode so that the folders aren't in use when you try to move them? (Does Win10 still have Safe Mode?)
- You can have all your stuff where you want [no, it's a lie]
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@djls45 Windows 10 still has safe mode, but Edge won't run (nor will any UWP apps, without workarounds) and I have not been able to get Safe Mode With Networking to work at all.
Of course, it shouldn't have to come to using safe mode...
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@izzion said in Windows 10 reinstall:
because you can never have Windows Explorer open as an administrator
Beg the differ, IIRC this is possible if you have it set to run in separate processes mode. Also if you unset it as your shell.
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@Magus said in Windows 10 reinstall:
with Cortana running the whole installation, with voice recognition working during the process.
This is what bothers me about that: MS is pretty adamant that Cortana can't be used outside of UWP apps, yet I find it extremely unlikely that they managed to get that working in the preinstallation environment... So clearly it's a native app, but they claim that's impossible! WTF!
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@Magus said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@Helix Yep. And it defaults to having your documents folders be onedrive folders, so you typically have all of those too.
But you actually need to put in your login details separately into OneDrive now. I believe that Microsoft has de-coupled a lot of the separate apps from being synced as part of your Microsoft Account, in case you want to use a different account for OneDrive from your MSA.
What is synced to your MSA is pretty much Edge stuff, windows theme a few OS bits and bobs, but not much any more.
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@Tsaukpaetra it could just be using prerecorded voice lines or the same voice synthesizer without any of the other Cortana code.
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@LB_ said in Windows 10 reinstall:
@Tsaukpaetra it could just be using prerecorded voice lines or the same voice synthesizer without any of the other Cortana code.
Would have to test.
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@Helix That's completely untrue. You can set it up that way, and my computers used to be set up that way, when I connected my machine account to a Microsoft account. When you simply add your Microsoft account as a normal user, OneDrive integration is automatic.
Sure, sometimes your onedrive credentials get stale and you have to reenter them, but even that hasn't happened to me since switching how I add my user account.
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@Magus
Strange, not what i see.
I did a re-install yesterday with win10 cu.
Oh well
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@Helix And I did last weekend. But again, I installed it with no internet access, and my admin account added my Microsoft account user totally separately. I doubt most people do it that way, but when you do, it works the way I said it does.
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@MrL said in Windows 10 reinstall:
I understand that. And I think it's stupid, annoying and pointless.
It would have been interesting if they'd implemented "log in with your Microsoft account" the same way Active Directory logins work, but I'm sure there are very good reasons they couldn't/didn't.
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I thought a little update would be in order, as there are some 'developments'...
It appears that not only I cannot install new apps form the store - the store cannot install updates to apps already present (like 'Mail' for example).
Windows update also doesn't work - access denied, same as with the store.And a week ago OneDrive sync stopped working. OneDrive just silently crashes on system startup. No error, no nothing.
At least no more unexpected restarts for me, so yaaay!
