DISM Windows Rebuild News

[ncameron]

Just to pass on the information that several SB users have reported on Microsoft's own Surface Book Forum having some success with improved reliability of their devices after running a DISM Windows 10 restore health process. It appears that there is a serious generic software issue with the Windows 10 update process that exacerbates - or even causes - some of our familiar issues. I have tried it, it's laborious, but does seem to really help with sleep, waking and BOSD. I now get completely clean SFC and DISM scans.

The faint hearted may want to wait for the fix which apparently is already in the works having been prioritised by Microsoft as it affects all Windows 10 implementations.

If you're interested in the detail; and it is fascinating, see:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...e/4191ea36-b59f-411f-b5e9-35bc5aab2413?page=1
and
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfbook-surfdrivers/ms-surface-windows-tech-support-tells-me-that/9ed874b1-df35-48e0-be77-867460a43887

 

[Aldec]

I posted a simple solution to this problem in the Surface Pro 4 forum under the heading "Scannow and SP Pro 4" last Thursday.
The problem is caused by the updating using install.ESD instead of install.WIM.
It would be useful if this was posted as a sticky.

 

[GreyFox7]

In theory the contents of install.esd is the same as install.wim.

Install.esd is a different format that is smaller in size due to higher compression and encrypted that is used by Windows Update to help speed downloads and potentially disk space. There's an article written on how to convert an install.esd file to install.wim and or make an ISO with either install.esd or install.wim.

So simply stating updating using install.esd instead of install.wim doesn't really mean anything. If either file is corrupt or if there are issues properly accessing the contents there will be problems.

MS should be verifying the file (esd or wim) is not corrupt, if they aren't that's a problem. If the esd format has problems being decrypted or decompressed that's another problem, likewise with the wim format which is also compressed but not as much as the esd format and apparently not encrypted.

It seems Windows Update Roulette corruption has been an issue for a couple years at least. The same with Installation. i.e. more than once I have done a Reset to "fix problems" only to have different problems afterwards and then do another Reset to finally get whole. Then after a couple Windows Update cycles the same problems return. This would seem to be confirmed by issues with .esd or .wim files.

If they were corrupt from the start problems would seems to be universally experienced by everyone but if they were randomly corrupted in the process of accessing/using them then it would depend on if you hit the problem or not at the time. Additionally there may be possible corruption during download which again becomes a hit or miss affair although this should be easily detectable if they are verifying the file first.