the repair-install procedure from an ISO

[Bob1212]

If I have the 2004 19041.1 ISO, and I choose to repair from that ISO while keeping all my data, then what exactly happens? I'm not allowed by Windows to proceed without an active internet connection, and it says it wants to download various updates.

What I'm worried about is that it will proceed to download the *latest* ISO which is December 20H2, then I'll have to go through another 12 hour download on my slow connection. That might then mess up my computer as badly as the 2004 March-2021 update already did to me. My Win 10 has been damaged by the March update and I cannot install any more updates, neither via Windows Update nor manually with update msu files from the catalog.

All I want to do is to re-install 19041.1 from a fresh ISO so that my computer runs again as it should.

 

[australopitheque]

Hello
have you tried to repair it by using the DISM commands?

Analyze the Windows 10 image with DISM
Open a command prompt as an administrator.
Analyze the Windows 10 image to determine if it is damaged or not:

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Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

This operation may take several minutes.

You will get one of the following results:
"No damage to the component store has been detected"

it's perfect, the Windows 10 image is intact! 
You can run the command : 

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sfc /scannow

but at first sight it is not your case
you probably have the message:

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 The component store is repairable

 this indicates that the image of Windows 10 is damaged.
So you have to check if the image of Windows 10 is intact, repairable or not repairable:

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Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

If the image of Windows 10 is damaged but repairable

Repair the Windows 10 system image:

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Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

If everything goes well, you should get the message

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"The restoration was performed. The operation was successful".

the Windows 10 image has been repaired successfully!
if you get an error message:

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Error 0x800f081: "The source files cannot be found".

you have to repair it with the ISO of the version of your current Windows, but before, make sure to check the hash of your iso to avoid a corrupted win.
once done, mount the iso with daemontool or with windows explorer.

To repair the image of Windows 10 by specifying as source the installation file located in the ISO

Either you have an install.wim file so:

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Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:wim:X:\sources\install.wim:N /LimitAccess

Or you have an install.esd file:

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Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:esd:X:\sources\install.esd:N /LimitAccess

Replace X by the drive letter associated with the ISO image and N by the index of the Windows 10 edition to be repaired.

Detail of indexes and editions of Windows 10

The install.wim/install.esd file may contain several editions of Windows 10, identified by indexes:

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index 1: Windows 10 Home ;
index 2 : Windows 10 Home N ;
index 4 : Windows 10 Education ;
index 6 : Windows 10 Professional...

You can find all the available indexes in the file install.wim/install.esd with the command :

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DISM /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:install.(wim|esd)

To get more information about an index :

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DISM /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:install.(wim|esd) /Index:1

Now run the command again

Quote

sfc /scannow

the System File Checker tool should successfully run and repair any errors.

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by australopitheque

[Canukhed]

That stupid update crashed OS drive, making it unusable until I reinstalled Windows.  I ended up reinstalling with my older ISO I had on CD and let Windows 10 do all the updates afterwards, then I downloaded the updated ISO.  Microsoft will never get a class action lawsuit for all the times they broke people's computers and destroyed data.  Good thing I backup everything, but most people don't.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Canukhed

[Bob1212]

On 4/3/2021 at 4:18 AM, australopitheque said:

Hello
have you tried to repair it by using the DISM commands?

 

Yes, indeed, I was finally able about 10 days ago to get DISM to repair all the damaged files once I had downloaded the 2004 ISO to use as the source. However, successfully repairing all the damaged files showed no detectable benefit; all the problems remained.

My next step is to try a repair-install of my 2004 by using the downloaded 2004 ISO. I have no confidence that it will go well, because the now-broken UAC might wrongly interfere, the Crypto Service routinely takes complete use of the HDD, and other problems exist from the update.

Thanks for posting the detailed reply. The instructions are excellent.

[Bob1212]

27 minutes ago, Canukhed said:

That stupid update crashed OS drive, making it unusable until I reinstalled Windows.  I ended up reinstalling with my older ISO I had on CD and let Windows 10 do all the updates afterwards, then I downloaded the updated ISO.  Microsoft will never get a class action lawsuit for all the times they broke people's computers and destroyed data.  Good thing I backup everything, but most people don't.

I agree completely with everything you say. Microsoft is detestable. Not only do they force unwanted updates which damage computers, but they also have zero liability and even worse they don't care one bit. Their support site is a joke.

[erpster9]

On 4/6/2021 at 6:23 PM, Bob1212 said:

I agree completely with everything you say. Microsoft is detestable. Not only do they force unwanted updates which damage computers, but they also have zero liability and even worse they don't care one bit. Their support site is a joke.

that's what happens when Microsoft got rid of their QA team several years ago.  the quality of updates for most Win10 versions have gone down some (the March 2021 updates caused blue screen errors for some & have also caused several printing issues and had to release some out-of-band updates to clean up their mess)