Windows 10 Anniversary Update

That update did NOT go well for me.

I lost the use of my mouse, which, after some investigation, turned out to be because my add-on USB 3.0 board no longer worked. I lost sound. I tried booting off my REDO backup disk( three of them, actually, I had backups), but they never finished loading and recognizing my external backup HD. My video drivers were messed up such that only one of my two monitors worked. Printers seemed gone, but things were so FUBAR I’m not sure I was able to properly verify that.

After a few reboots, trying SAFE mode, etc, I ended up with a teal screen with 3 icons in the lower right corner. One was reboot/shut off, one was networks(which simply told me no networks were available if I clicked it) and one was ‘ease of use’ (font size, etc). Nothing else at all. Weirdest thing I’ve seen in ages.

I formatted and reinstalled. Without going into details, this REALLY wasn’t the best time for that.

What the hell happened? Looked like all my drivers were fubar, but I never had enough control over the machine to fix it.

How can I prepare for the NEXT time Microsoft pushes that ‘update’ on me? What do?

I don’t think I had a virus/malware. I’ve been using the computer very little, no one else uses it at all, and while the hacking of legit ad sites means that no one is 100% safe ever, this seemed like an unlikely time for this to happen. Very little use compared to my usual habits, I hadn’t installed anything new for days AT LEAST. I run Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware Pro (always runs in background) and webroot antivirus.

Happy anniversary!

Spend some time updating all the drivers for your printer etc. If the USB 3 is still not working, contact the supplier/maker.

Isn’t it a waste to use the USB 3 slot for a mouse?

Choked my system on the first go-round, which is unusual - I could put all my problems with Win 10 on a match cover with room left for a jazz riff. But the combination video (mobo Intel set, Nvidia card) seems to have thrown the updater. I had to pull the card, let it finish the update, then restore the card and manually install the newest Nvidia drivers.

Don’t like some of the Anniversary updates. A minor one: I can no longer size Sticky Notes the way I like, and it changed all my note fonts back to Calibri or whatever.

Update has gone smoothly on other systems.

I’m seeing that about 12% of people who installed Windows 10 ended up reverting to their previous version because of problems.

Note that a Windows update released last week finally removes the Get Windows 10 nagware from Win7 and Win8.

My system tried to install it and failed, so it reverted to the last version. Am I going to be able to avoid this update, or will I have to make peace with it?

Make peace with it, since if you’re at an earlier version (10240, 1511 etc.) win10 will update you automatically to this version via the windows automatic updates unless you turn updates off - which you should not do.
You can get the update tool directly from this Microsoft website.

If you’re at an earlier version (10240, 1511 etc.) win10 will update you automatically to this version via the windows automatic updates unless you turn updates off - which you should not do.

Older machines seem to have issues updating (or installing) to the 1607 directly, they keep failing for some reason which seems to have something to do with some Intel drivers (at least the ones that had the issue here had all older Intel chipsets).
However after a reinstall of an older version of Win10 and then doing some updates and then updating to the later version worked out just fine.

Got a cite, please?

You can try installing Windows Update KB3184143. Not sure if it will work since your machine already tried to install WinX, but it’s probably worth a try.

Worst case, if you really want to stick with your previous version, just reinstall it and pretty much for sure this update will prevent future attempts to install WinX.

I have 2 older laptops that both went through the 1607 “anniversary” update recently. They had both come from the factory with then-current Win7 and been upgraded to WIn 8 then Win 8.1 then 10 via MS’s update services.

The newer simpler Office 2010-use-only vanilla machine hung partway in and was totally unresponsive to Ctrl-Alt-Delete. We let it spin for 24 hours before reluctantly cycling the power. I was ready for darn near any level of bad news when I powered it back up after a minute. It said something like “Upgrade interrupted, restarting from checkpoint”, then proceeded to finish up normally 30 minutes later. No other hassles, no weirdness, and no data loss.

The older one had been a dev machine with lots of weird stuff installed and deinstalled and left half-installed. That one had me worried a bit before I pushed [Go]. It chugged for about an hour and reported total success. And works fine.
Neither of these machines were obvious candidates for a painless upgrade. But they were almost so. So there’s two data points; and worth every penny you paid for them.