September 13th, 2015: After Microsoft’s relentless nagging to install the new awesome Windows 10 I finally gave in to temptation and curiosity and decided to try it on my notebook, which is not a production system, but more or less a playground. First of all I saved the image of the current Win 7 installation with Macrium Reflect (recommendation, very reliable) and then I pressed OK. What happened next was totally unexpected. Within an hour and after a number of restarts, Windows 10 was readily installed with all my applications and settings and even with my previous desktop including my photo. There was nothing to reinstall, everything worked as before. Piece of cake! Well done Microsoft, but why wasn’t that possible with earlier versions of Windows, where we had to go through the agony of reinstalling everything from scratch. I made only two small adjustments and installed “Classic Shell” and “Shutup 10” because 10 is probably the biggest piece of spyware ever created. SU10 from O&O disables all spy functions with one click. Apart from that I have to say, that I like it! After three days of smooth operation I decided to upgrade my desktop as well and guess what: The installation freezes at first reboot. All attempts following tips found on the web failed until now. Fortunately a reset at that point rolls back to the old 7 installation without a problem. I have given up for the time being.

Novenber 5th, 2015: Whenever a new idea crossed my mind as to what may cause the problem on my desktop, I gave it a try. The internet is full of "great ideas", how to fix error code 0x1900101-0x20017, however none worked for me. Here is what I tried during the last two months (and the list is not complete):

• Remove unused drivers
• Uninstall and wipe Internet Security Suite
• Update all drivers
• Remove all USB devices including mouse and keyboard during reboot
• Remove 2 of 4 DDR3 RAM Modules
• Disconnect all internal and external drives except for c:
• Do a clean boot (disable all non MS-Services)
• Disconnect network during reboot
• Disconnect 2nd monitor
• Change suspicious BIOS settings to default values and more ...

Today I checked for no good reason the version of my BIOS and found a prerelease, which is not even in the release list of the MB manufacturer! The installed UEFI BIOS was version P1.4, ASRock's list start with 1.5 and the current version is 2.5. So I re-flashed the BIOS, did all my settings, started the upgrade to 10 from CD again and guess what ...