Thanks
While you're set, in case it's of any use later or to someone else...
Between Microsoft laying off what I've read was roughly half their Windows coding staff -- the 1/2 responsible for quality control & testing -- and their move to a ship 1st, fix 2nd strategy, unless a problem effects what they consider a significant number of users, any fix gets routed to a development To-Do list, rather than any sort of "Oh my gosh, we've got to fix this now" response. That's reportedly why MS stated that they wouldn't push out the 1607 buid of 10 [the Anniversary Update/Upgrade] to everyone until probably some time in November. They pushed it out to newer hardware first, & as trouble reports came in, added the fixes they came up with to the win10 setup files &/or updates. Doing it that way they figured it would take until November to get things working on most of the compatible Windows 10 devices out there.
An upgrade to build 1607 that doesn't work today then might work next week, or next month etc., as long as it's done via Windows Update, or if using an ISO, the box is checked to check for updates during setup. If a problem is closer to the bottom of their To-Do lists however, it might take several development or Insider builds before it's addressed, or in some cases it might not happen at all. Using an Insider build has a few Gotchas, but it can be worth it as there are sometimes improvements, & especially if that's all that will work.
Anyone can join the Insider program, flip the switch in their copy of Windows 10, & a few days [or as long as a week] later a new build shows up in Windows Update. You can leave the program at any time, but that means going back to the latest general release build. Otherwise if you chose the Fast Ring you'll get a new build pushed out once every one or two weeks usually, while the Slow Ring often sees one once every month or two. These are Beta builds, so they do have problems, though I personally don't think most Insider builds have a greater percentage of problems than the regular builds.
You can get around some of that by creating an ISO from the Install.esd file that's left behind after upgrading to an Insider build. That of course means using a VM or another Windows device or backing up & restoring the system drive partition etc. Once you've got an ISO you can burn it to disc, use something like rufus to stick it on a bootable USB stick, or mount the ISO & optionally copy the files & folders somewhere else. If a copy of 10 is Not set to receive Insider builds, upgrading to an Insider build will not in my experience turn that on. If an Insider build of 10 is installed fresh, receiving Insider builds is not turned on. The Gotcha there is that an Insider build may carry an expiration date -- shortly before 1607 was released, Microsoft sent out a warning that Insider builds would expire a few days before the 1607 release.
That all said, updating to a newer Windows 10 build means that the setup routine will try to transfer all of the preexisting software, settings, registry etc. That can fail, & it can cause the upgrade to fail -- sometimes uninstalling stuff beforehand *might* allow the upgrade to either work properly or in some cases to finish.
One of my persistent complaints with 10 is that it's never been consistent from one copy to the next -- I feel that every copy should behave identically, receive the exact same updates & so on, & that hasn't happened, even after a year. I have 2 copies of 10 64 on this PC -- one is more of a backup originally intended to associate one of my win7 licenses with a copy of 10 before the cutoff date. I've had & have problems with the driver for my RX 470 graphics card on the 2nd copy, & after upgrading to that card, installing the driverset etc., an ATI/AMD TV tuner card that has been OK now is inop in Device Mgr. -- drivers fail to install, though everything related to that card & the AMD graphics card is identical to the other copy of 10, where both work fine.
Which illustrates the point I'd make: there are bad installations of 10. I've had it happen once with my miniPC, once with my tablet, a couple of times with my VMs on the Insider program, & now apparently twice on this PC. When that happens it's often necessary to install a new build of 10 fresh rather than upgrade builds -- otherwise upgrading will either fail or the result won't work as it should. When you have a problem as with the graphics card, a fresh install **might** work.
Regarding hardware itself, Windows 10 can sometimes be great, & other times a huge PITA. Rather than one Safe Mode, you have a list of options including turning off driver signing enforcement, which is something 10 can go to greater lengths to enforce. That enforcement may also be getting stricter, as a recent update disabled an old mouse driver I was using temporarily. And *maybe* related to that enforcement, I've seen drivers that were available via Windows 10 &/or Windows Update, cease to be available with a newer build. More than once I've had to use drivers in the old version Windows\ DriverStore\ FileRepository\ folder because that was the only way I could get them with a new build. [I always copy that entire folder somewhere else before upgrading builds now, since it's protected & hard if not impossible to copy its contents if you're not running that copy of Windows at the time.]
Note that in many cases to use a driver that 10 frowns upon, you have to update/install that driver by using Device Mgr., & then you may have to go the route where you select Let me choose the driver, then Have disk, then browse to the driver .inf file. Otherwise if you don't do that, & 10 doesn't like that driver, it may ignore the driver files entirely, or maybe say that the best driver is already installed, or that it can't find a driver.
Now, regarding graphics cards or chips {GPUs]... Historically the Windows Update database was the very worst place to get a graphics driver, because manufacturers would not give Microsoft their complete code. Worst case those drivers can break Windows, or GPU-related stuff wouldn't/won't work properly, or you could never install the full set of drivers from the manufacturer. Microsoft however made a big push when 10 was 1st released, & Windows Update was at least for a while the only source for graphics drivers. Today it can be an either/or -- Windows Update may be the best or worst place to get them.
While they *might* sometimes show up in the regular Windows Update window, you often have to update drivers using Device Mgr., right clicking the display adapter & having Windows search [Windows Update database online] for the latest drivers. Note that Device Mgr. can error when it lists hardware components -- it can list a device as something it's not, & even load a driver for it.
To find a graphics driver for an Intel CPU or SOC that includes a GPU, sometimes you need to search for the Ark page at Intel's site for that CPU or SOC, sometimes you need to go through the download drivers page at Intel's site, sometimes Intel's downloadable driver tool will work, & sometimes Windows Update is the best choice. Sometimes the driver setup directly from Intel adds extra software that *may* cause problems, depending on the device -- sometimes you can get away from that by installing drivers you got from Intel via Device Mgr. rather than running setup. And sometimes it helps to uninstall an older version of Intel's graphics driver the same as regular software, via Programs in Control Panel.
AMD has universal graphics drivers, but does not support what they call legacy GPUs -- I think the current split is some models of their 7xxx series, & anything older than that. They had one beta or hotfix driver released last spring I think that supports those legacy devices in 10. Future support is unknown, and considering they dropped Windows 32 bit support for their newer cards, in what I believe was a cost cutting move [Nvidia still appears to support 32 bit], I'd personally consider future support of older GPUs a bit iffy.With the exception of their mobile GPUs, AMD[.]com is still the best place to find & get drivers -- individual graphics card brands *may* have branded drivers when a card is new, but generally they don't offer much if anything you don't get with reference drivers from AMD or Nvidia. With AMD's mobile GPUs, you may find the release notes for the latest driver includes your hardware, & you're all set. Or you may have to search forums etc. to find out what will work, &/or go with whatever the brand of your hardware provides.
The complaint I've seen with Nvidia is that for some 10 does not recognize &/or supply drivers for their GPUs, so they have to get them online & install them.
