03-30-2020 , 09:47 AM
I was early in trying to update my 1809 to 1903 and had massive problems at first. Windows update didn't (yet) offer the update, the Microsoft Update Tool encountered some problems with my system and refused to update (unfortunately the tool is quite silent about the nature of the updates). I did some log analyzing and found out it had to do with an incomatible driver from (an old version of) Daemon Tools. Additionally my system was equipped with Intel hardware that was known to cause problems back then.
However, I was curious and used the Microsoft Update Tool to create an installation USB stick and used this to upgrade. The result: update failed, I got a bluescreen after the installation copied the files to my harddisk. After another reboot, Windows detected the failed update and reverted back to the previous version, so at least I got no data loss and a working system. (To tell the truth: I encountered yet another problem. My system was a dual boot Win/Linux and the process killed my bootloader so I had to fix it through Grub emergency system.)
So, no update for me in the early days of 1903. About two months later I tried to update again, but still got the error message from the Update Tool. I took this as a sign to set up my system from scratch, backed up all data, formatted my system partition and ... installation succeeded without problems. So either Microsoft fixed some issues in the meantime or a fresh installation has less compatibility issues than an update.
Upgrading from 1903 to 1909 was no problem at all, was started from within Windows update and only took some minutes (this is due to Microsoft having already delivered 1903->1909 with a monthly feature update but having disabled it. So the "upgrade" was more of an enabler than a real update).
To cut a long story short:
- yes, massive problems with upgrading
- no data loss and reverting to previous version worked well
- clean install succeeded
As always, a backup of your (important) data before doing the update should be done.
However, I was curious and used the Microsoft Update Tool to create an installation USB stick and used this to upgrade. The result: update failed, I got a bluescreen after the installation copied the files to my harddisk. After another reboot, Windows detected the failed update and reverted back to the previous version, so at least I got no data loss and a working system. (To tell the truth: I encountered yet another problem. My system was a dual boot Win/Linux and the process killed my bootloader so I had to fix it through Grub emergency system.)
So, no update for me in the early days of 1903. About two months later I tried to update again, but still got the error message from the Update Tool. I took this as a sign to set up my system from scratch, backed up all data, formatted my system partition and ... installation succeeded without problems. So either Microsoft fixed some issues in the meantime or a fresh installation has less compatibility issues than an update.
Upgrading from 1903 to 1909 was no problem at all, was started from within Windows update and only took some minutes (this is due to Microsoft having already delivered 1903->1909 with a monthly feature update but having disabled it. So the "upgrade" was more of an enabler than a real update).
To cut a long story short:
- yes, massive problems with upgrading
- no data loss and reverting to previous version worked well
- clean install succeeded
As always, a backup of your (important) data before doing the update should be done.