A week or so ago, MS queued up a batch of updates, including
theh big one (subj). I clicked Update and Restart and went to
have breakfast. When I returned, I was greeted by the Dell
Support Assist rescue my computer screen! (This has never
happened before.) I tried everything that it suggested; none
worked. I finally had to revert to restoring a full disk
backup, which reverted to the system as it was two weeks
earlier. In Settings, I paused updates for two weeks
but 22H2 showed up again and so did "Update and Restart".
uhoh... Dare I let it happen?

jason_warren@ieee.org wrote:
> A week or so ago, MS queued up a batch of updates, including
> theh big one (subj). I clicked Update and Restart and went to
> have breakfast. When I returned, I was greeted by the Dell
> Support Assist rescue my computer screen! (This has never
> happened before.) I tried everything that it suggested; none
> worked. I finally had to revert to restoring a full disk
> backup, which reverted to the system as it was two weeks
> earlier. In Settings, I paused updates for two weeks
> but 22H2 showed up again and so did "Update and Restart".
> uhoh... Dare I let it happen?

Apply the updates singly, starting with the earliest, and reboot after
each one. Allow a couple of days ....

--
Graham J

On 8/27/2023 4:32 PM, jason_warren@ieee.org wrote:
> A week or so ago, MS queued up a batch of updates, including
> theh big one (subj). I clicked Update and Restart and went to
> have breakfast. When I returned, I was greeted by the Dell
> Support Assist rescue my computer screen! (This has never
> happened before.) I tried everything that it suggested; none
> worked. I finally had to revert to restoring a full disk
> backup, which reverted to the system as it was two weeks
> earlier. In Settings, I paused updates for two weeks
> but 22H2 showed up again and so did "Update and Restart".
> uhoh... Dare I let it happen?
>

Using this software, sets a few registry entries that
control Version Upgrades. You can stop 21H2 from going to 22H2 with this.
You can stop W10 from going to W11 with this. It might say
"Controlled by your organization" in Windows Update
after you use it.

https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm

Presumably something Dell has done, had something to do with this.
I would guess some sort of boot menu issue.

Waiting until the software gets to the point you are at right now,
is not good. If you'd done incontrol after the restore, you'd
be laughing right now. The thing is, some files are staged for
the upgrade at the moment, and they're not going to unstage themselves.
You might have to find the package number for the Upgrade, and
give it something along the lines of:

DISM /image:c:\ /remove-package /packagename: etc. command.

You could try looking in Windows Update and the history link,
to see what that package number is. I'm not really sure it's
going to be listed there, which is half the problem.

There is also

Settings : System : Recovery : "Go Back"

but mine is grayed out, and that is a post-install thing which
uses C:\Windows.old to roll back. And if you allowed the install
to go forward, it does not seem to be ready to roll back. That's where
this comes in, for things that are "in-flight". Again, is yours
currently in inflight mode -- probably not. The particular format
of these commands, is shown in "done from a DVD" mode.

DISM /image:c:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions # Command Prompt, via DVD boot
DISM /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions # Try, while your system is running.

*******

You could do a Repair Install with a 21H2 DVD or USB stick. That's
if you have the media for it. Since the OS is running and all, you
don't even need physical media -- the ISO file is sufficient.

Steps:

1) Macrium backup of current situation. You can do that without rebooting,
providing no chance for the update to move forward.
2) Locate Windows11.iso file

Name: Win11_English_x64.iso
Size: 5,497,985,024 bytes (5243 MiB) [no good for single-layer DVD, good enough for Repair Installs]
SHA256: 667BD113A4DEB717BC49251E7BDC9F09C2DB4577481DDFBCE376436BEB9D1D2F
Tuesday, ‎October ‎5, ‎2021 [21H2???]

Right click the ISO and select "Mount".

3) In File Explorer, navigate to the virtual DVD drive letter.
Double click "setup.exe" to start Repair Install.
4) After Repair Install completes, Windows Update will do Aug2023 Cumulative
and a .NET update or so, putting it more or less back where it was a
couple weeks ago.

You can use InControl to set the version to W11 21H2, so it will not
attempt to immediately go to 22H2.

At this point in time, C:\Windows.old will contain the C image together with
whatever staged files for 22H2 were present. The C:\Windows will be 21H2.

Then you can Google around and see why your particular model number of Dell, is cursed.

Paul

Are you sure that you really need Windows?
I have converted most of my PCs (and within family) to ChromeOS Flex,
which ist hassle free, compared to Windows.
I still have a HP workstation with Windows 10, running a VM (VMWare
Player) with Windows 10 with some important software. I use it over
RDP/Wireguard from my ChromeOS Flex machines (Remmina-RDP).

On 8/28/23 15:31, this is what Michael Logies wrote:
> Are you sure that you really need Windows?
> I have converted most of my PCs (and within family) to ChromeOS Flex,
> which ist hassle free, compared to Windows.
> I still have a HP workstation with Windows 10, running a VM (VMWare
> Player) with Windows 10 with some important software. I use it over
> RDP/Wireguard from my ChromeOS Flex machines (Remmina-RDP).

It never stops amazing me how much (not wasted mind you) time and resources people have put together to get their work
flow working. We kluge hardware and software, some of which I have never even conceived of, to get a job done.

I was just commenting on the Thunderbird group about my kluge of google calendar/TB/Linux Calendar/Rainlendar2 desktop
calendar, all so I can get what I wanted for my work flow.

God you have to love technology some days. Except when it breaks of course.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al