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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:59 pm 
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I've been dual booting Windows 7 Pro & Windows 10 Pro (Build 1809 to be precise) for quite a while now.

The aim was to see if i could use 3rd party software and run Window 10 with my existing software and tweak the user interface so it resembled as close as possible my current Window 7 way of working... e.g. without ALL the bells and whistles that the are enabled by Windows 10 etc.

The aim was never to do get Windows 10 into a state where i could simply delete my Windows 7 partition, it was more a proof of concept test to see if it could be done.
For that reason i wasn't really interested in 'upgrading' Windows 10 as later Builds were released... the horror stories i've read about some of the problems later builds have caused, that was even more reason to leave upgrading Win10 alone until i was sure the concept could work the way i wanted.

The alternative was going to mean moving to Linux or some other operating system.

I also didn't install Windows 10 onto a seperate Drive, i chose instead to partition my SSD drive and have Win7 & Win10 on the same drive but in seperate partitions.
Reason being i would sooner or sadly later have to stop using Win7 anyway so a format and fresh install was impending and dual-booting on the same drive was the easier option.

Fast forward to Sunday 31st May...

I was pretty happy with the way things were going, i was 98% happy to make the leap, there were a couple of niggles such as i couldn't get the Win10 taskbar customised to the colour i like but things like that were so minor i was pretty much ready to make the leap...

On Sunday i logged into Win10 and went to Windows Update eager to see what the latest Build had to offer....

After various updates i was upgraded to Win10 build 1909.

What happened next is barely believable, but it happend, and has left me wondering what to do next!

Win10 1909 had no LAN/Internet connection at all, i rebooted into Win 7 and there was no LAN/Internet available on that either.

After checking cables and rebooting router/modem etc it was clear that Build 1909 had broken something, and that somehow it had spanned my dual boot, i tried re-installing the network and motherboard chipset drivers within Win10 and Win7 with no joy.

I uninstalled the Win10 Microsoft Updates installed the day before but two did not give the option to uninstall, go figure??

Booted into Win10 and using System Restore, restored to a point before any changes were made, still no joy.

Restored Win7 using System Restore from the day before, no joy again.

I was completely locked out of the internet and local area network despite having dual boot options on two partitions.

Using my phone to search the internet for options everything seemed to point at a sytem restore (tried that) or uninstalling updates (tried that but 2 x kb articles could not be uninstalled... not even in Win10 Safe Mode... also begs the question why Safe Mode in Win10 is so hard to find now?).

I gave up at that point and went to bed...

Next morning i woke up and decided that even though i'm not familiar with Win10 i had to do something drastic...Win10 Repair Install with keep Apps and Settings was selected (wording will be incorrect but if you're familiar with the setting you'll know what i mean)...

In reality my foremost thought was how on earth did a Win10 update kill Win7, just let me back into Win7 with working network capability and i'll be happy....

Worst case scenario i have a Macrium backup that i can use to restore Win7 but it's a few months out of date, not the end of the world because my data isn't stored on the SSD.

Win10 Repair Install selected... after the final reboot the Boot Menu has gone!!.... <enter expletives!!>

I can get into Win10 and network functions have been restored including the internet... all my previous custom Win10 setting have been over-written but that's the least of my worries!

I can see that my Win7 partition still exists, i just don't know what state it's in AND i can't access it!

Fortunately i remembered bootrec and was able to rebuild the Boot Menu, boot menu restored.... amazingly after all of the above my Win7 installation appears to be fully functional.

Win7 is now confirmed fully functional after a System Restore now that i can access it again, the only casualty being MBAM, uninstalled and re-installed so even that now works.

Win10 is in a hell of a mess and will stay that way... despite my best efforts i'm still nowhere nearer trusting Win10 which is really sad given i love Windows when it works. :omg:


Last edited by Doddie on Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:19 pm 
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I have no clue as to why the upgrade affected the Windows 7 install. My laptop also dual boots 10 and 7 from different partitions on the same drive on my laptop and I had no issues when I upgraded to 1909. Nor did I have any issues when I did the recent upgrade of Windows 10 to 2004 (May 2020 upgrade).

I can see the network being affected on your Windows 10 install if there was a driver conflict but that does not explain affecting Windows 7.

By 'repair install' I assume that you used the option to restore Windows to a previous version option in settings. The ability to do this is why a feature upgrade creates a Windows.old folder. The previous Windows version is contained in this folder.

Sorry I can't be of any real help. :(

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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:28 pm 
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My post was more of an FYI than a call for help... i couldn't believe what happened actually happened.

The 'repair' option is an option available in the Win10 troubleshooting Recovery settings i believe.

Probably wrong on where to find it but pretty sure it's a recovery option somewhere.


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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:39 pm 
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Rather than edit my previous post, and so nothing is missed....

The repair option i'm talking about should not be confused with a repair to an earlier version... my interpritation on the repair option i'm talking about restores the PC to the first installed version.

If my memory serves me right the repair option is as if the installation disc were inserted... though in my case it never asked for the disc to be inserted... it certainly looked and felt like a fresh install.

HTH


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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:49 pm 
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LOL! I'm confused which is my normal state of mind. :mrgreen:

I don't know of any 'repair install' that allows the keeping of apps except for the option to restore to previous version. The only other option that I know of is to reset Windows which allows you to keep data but kills any installed apps and settings. :dunno:

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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 6:02 pm 
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You're confused? You should try sitting where i am, if only MS would stop changing words that mean essentially the same thing! LOL

Reset, and not repair, is of course what Win10 call it now!

cf. viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2321

Credit to Gerry for the question, credit to Steve for the clarity.

Steve's link that explains it all:
https://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Windows-10


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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 6:45 pm 
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OK, I get it now, I think, and assume that anything that you had previously installed is gone and to be installed again.

Ya, there is some confusion as to the wording between a repair install and a reset. In this case Microsoft is correct in the change of wording.

A repair install is just that; repairs the system by overwriting system files but leaves the registry, apps and such intact. At least I believe it leaves the registry intact but may just leave the portions that associate with installed software intact. The last version of Windows that had a true repair install was Windows XP (sigh, possibly Windows Vista, can't remember.). Windows 7 does not include a direct option for a repair install but it can still be done with a bit of deception but you will need physical Windows 7 install media. Just load the install media on a running Windows 7 system and select to upgrade. It seems that the Windows install media does not check for the current running OS so just does its thing as if it were upgrading from XP or Vista.

A reset is just that, a reset. It puts the system back to factory, just like when bought.

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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:40 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
A repair install is just that; repairs the system by overwriting system files but leaves the registry, apps and such intact. At least I believe it leaves the registry intact but may just leave the portions that associate with installed software intact. The last version of Windows that had a true repair install was Windows XP (sigh, possibly Windows Vista, can't remember.). Windows 7 does not include a direct option for a repair install but it can still be done with a bit of deception but you will need physical Windows 7 install media. Just load the install media on a running Windows 7 system and select to upgrade. It seems that the Windows install media does not check for the current running OS so just does its thing as if it were upgrading from XP or Vista.

A reset is just that, a reset. It puts the system back to factory, just like when bought.

I'm not sure we are on the same page, whatever the update was on Win10 that caused my issue it had a catastrophic impact on Win7 & Win10...

THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED!

That it happened was bad enough but the hoops i had to jump through to regain access to Win7 was even worse, fortunately i had the knowledge to restore access to Win7 so no harm has been done.

If i was reliant on Win10 i'd likely be in a much worse position... had i needed to sacrafice Win7 to get back into Win10.... i'm not so sure if i'd sacraficed Win7 to have a working Win10 things would've worked out so well.


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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 8:58 pm 
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I think that we are on the same page but I sort of went to clarification of terms after you said that your initial post was largely 'FYI'. :) I agree that an upgrade on your Windows 10 boot should not have affected the Windows 7 boot. I could sort of see Windows 7 being removed from the boot menu if the Windows 10 upgrade over wrote the boot loader but that still does not explain the loss of networking/internet.

BTW, if dealing with a dual boot you might want to look at EasyBCD. There IS a free version for noncommercial use.
https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/
It is a super easy app to edit the boot loader and backup/restore a saved boot loader. I've been using it for many years.

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:14 pm 
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Agreed that my use of the word "Repair" was wrong, it should have been "Reset", in my defence i did say i probably got the wording wrong ;)

To be honest the Boot Menu without Windows 7 didn't surprise me, as soon as the boot menu appeared with only Windows 10 listed i had a pretty good idea that Win10 had horked the Boot Menu... i was however optmistic that i could rebuild the Boot Menu manually.

What alarmed me most was that a Win10 upgrade broke networking in Win10 AND Win7 and there was no easy fix, nor seemingly any acknowledgement from MS that this might be an issue?

Add also that the Win10 Reset didn't recognise my existing Win7 partition... alarm bells and panic were starting to set in... what if anything was i going to find on my other HDD's and SSD if and when i finally got back into a version of Windows that had a working network?
[Bear in mind that my Win10 install was experimental and had very little software installed so if Win7 was trashed i was going to lose at least some data, at worst Win10 may have horked my other drives as well which really would have been catastrophic? I just didn't know what to expect at this point.]

In the end things turned out ok, i was able to rebuild the Boot Menu via Bootrec, Win7 and all drives and partitions are complete and networking is retored on both OS's... that said, Win10 is a mess and will need to be formatted but i won't be reinstalling that any time soon, i'll keep my security software as up to date as i can and wing it... preferring to stick with the devil i know (an insecure Win7 without support) than the devil i don't (a secure Win10 (sic) with support that breaks more than it should).

I've tried EasyBCD a few times in the past but i've had problems with it, admittedly they were a long time ago and i don't remember exactly what caused them but they were enough that i don't use EasyBCD... best guess of the top of my head was that when i needed to format an existing install, and/or clone a HDD for a new one, and/or one or more of the Boot Menu options was corrupt and needed rebuilt... or i simply wanted to remove EasyBCD and revert to the Windows Boot Loader?

Whatever the causes were i ran into an issue more than once, for that reason i prefer not to use EasyBCD, Bootrec has stood me well over the years even if it is a little bit more time consuming and 'complicated'.

That said, software is an ever evolving thing, if you think i should look again at EasyBCD then i might. :)


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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:40 pm 
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EasyBCD does not replace the Windows Boot Loader. It is just an editor.

I have no clue as to how or why a Windows 10 install would affect the NIC in a Windows 7 install but can see within the Windows 10 install.

See the following.
viewtopic.php?p=25437#p25437

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