Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Not a great title, and I doubt that too many [if Any] people will have the same hardware [a Winbook Windows 8 tablet], but if anyone does wind up in the same sort of situation, regardless the hardware they have, the way that I got this working might hopefully provide a glimmer of hope. Since the tablet originally ran 8.1, I went back to that, letting the new version of 10 decide what was appropriate, abandoning all the driver updates that Windows 10 Update had installed for the past 2 years. And it worked.

   Basically the tablet has an old(?) CPU [Z3735F from 2014] that currently seems to have been orphaned by Intel, e.g. no new drivers when they've just updated everything else I've found. Making matters worse is a slew of other Intel drivers for the chipset that haven't been updated either, but, newer semi-compatible drivers were previously installed by Windows Update.

   The symptoms were every Windows update for 10 v. 1607 since 3/13/7, Update Tuesday, failed to install. The Creators Update would not install fresh. Resetting Windows 10 1607 would work, partially - Windows would start, but several functions, including the graphics driver were missing, and updates still failed. I got the same results upgrading 1607 to 1703. Attempting to (re)install older or latest drivers wouldn't work. Because there is no way to opt out of Windows Update with 10 Home, the tablet was essentially useless -- every time 10 started it would attempt to update, almost stalling the low powered tablet until the update failed, the whole mess taking over an hour.

   I got a clue as to what **might** be happening going through the devices in Device Mgr., seeing if anything would update online. The I2C Controllers did, & afterwards, I lost the Intel display adapter, similar to what happened when I reset 1607, & when I upgraded to 1703. My theory became: Windows 10 Update previously either misidentified some of the tablet's components, or installed newer drivers that were not 100% compatible.

   I decided that the common sense approach would be to restore a backup from when the tablet was brand new, with original driver versions in Windows 8.1. I then had it go through Windows Update, installing the 175 or so updates that had happened over the last 2 years. Then I backed it up again. My logic was if Windows 10 1703 wouldn't work, I'd have to run 8.1 anyway, so nothing lost. Then on this PC I mounted the ISO for Windows 10 Home 32 bit 1703, copying all the files to a USB stick. I plugged that in to a USB hub attached to the tablet, ran setup, having it add any new updates, and it worked.

   Going back through the drivers in Device Mgr. most of the originals from 8 are still there -- that includes several that had been updated through 3 versions of 10. The Intel graphics driver was updated slightly from 8.1, but with a version earlier that what Windows Update last added in 2016.

   SO anyway, something to try if you find yourself in the same boat, with Windows 7 or 8 hardware that no longer works properly in the last version of Windows [1607] &/or the new one [1703].

   Posted 7 years ago #
2. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Please be careful out there... inaccurate advice, comments, & even semi-attacks spawned I imagine by egos might well be lurking, waiting for you or someone else to post something if/when there is or was some sort of a problem.

   It was a classic "No good deed goes unpunished" this morning when, trying to be helpful, I posted my experiences elsewhere.

   Something I didn't include in the above post [because it seemed beside the point to me], was that I eliminated the current installation of 10 1607 as a possible cause for any of the problems I was having, while also proving that 10 1703 did not on its own have the resources available to get 1703 operating properly on this tablet.

   I not only installed a copy of 10 1703 fresh, after formatting the partition where 1607 lived, but I also booted the tablet to a fresh Windows To Go drive -- it had the Creators update version of 10 installed, but had never been run before. When it was starting it searched the Windows Update database, adding whatever drivers it felt necessary. And when Windows 10 started it had no display adapter, & so no touch or rotation. I tried to add the latest driver posted by Intel, but it wouldn't install, despite that same driver working with 10 1607 at the beginning of March, & having been added by Windows 10 itself. To me that proved that Windows 10 had somehow changed. Also, if something stops working after updates, those updates broke something.

   Sadly that didn't & won't stop people from basically saying that what I wrote happened somehow did not. Some of it's a lack of logic &/or intelligence frankly, not reading or realizing when the installed copy of 10 had no bearing on the results. Others, convinced that Windows couldn't be at fault, will say it's all a lie, though not always in so many words. And still others will try to figure out some way to say that they know more or are better or something. Some I have yet to begin to figure out, like the Idgit implying I couldn't have had this problem because he did not on entirely different hardware(?).

   Anyway, point is not to complain or beg sympathy, but as I started above, Please Be Careful online. People will always say stuff that's wrong &/or malicious, so don't let it bother you if/when you try to help, & always, Always double, or better yet Triple check any advice that's given.

   Posted 7 years ago #

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