Dave-H

OK, but strange that just installing the later version does not appear to do that anyway. Presumably the differences between the file versions are only very minor. I'll run my file version checker and see if anything was actually changed.

Yes, I had the earlier version installed, and tried to install the later version, and while it didn't say that the update was already installed, it said that the install was done almost immediately. It did run the .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X86 service, but it only ran for about 12 minutes before stopping again, which is much quicker than normal! I suspect that it didn't actually do anything, but if I find different when I next run my system file version checker, I'll let you know!

Glad it helped you! Actually purely by coincidence I had to repair several task on my machine again only a couple of days ago, so had to re-remember the procedure. They must have got corrupted after I installed the Windows 10 "upgrade" and then swiftly reversed it by restoring an ISO backup of 8.1! I later noticed that the automatic system maintenance wasn't kicking in, and I found that two of its associated tasks were corrupted.

They are certainly different versions. Version 9.0.30729.4087 is signed on 20th July 2015, and version 9.0.30729.4089 is signed on 29th July 2015. Why they produced a second version so soon after the first, and didn't remove the first, is a bit of a mystery!

How strange! Presumably your copying of kexbases.dll actually failed for some unknown reason even though it appeared to work. Glad you got it sorted anyway. Cheers, Dave.

I just meant re-registering the DLLs with Windows by running "regsvr32 C:\Windows\KernelEx\xxxxx.dll" for each one in turn. I'm not actually sure whether they even need registering, but it can't do any harm! If you just get an error message when you try they probably don't support it.

What you did should have worked. Did the batch file give you an overwrite prompt for each DLL? Are the DLL files in your C:\Windows\KernelEx folder now all exactly the same as those in the update 7z file? You could try re-registering them.

All OK here (touch wood!)

Great to hear, glad it's all OK now. Cheers, Dave.

Glad you got there! There should be no danger of Windows 10 installing now as you've trashed its installation files. If Windows Update is still prompting about it, try running the Windows Update Troubleshooter if you haven't already, that should reset everything. You will lose your update history.

I certainly didn't have to do it one file at a time, but I did have to start with the sub-folders and work my way up to the top. If you get the error message, just go one more level down and try deleting the individual folders at that level. As Noel says, make sure that you have the checkmarks ticked to inherit permissions down the chain.

Glad to hear that you fixed it! Interesting that it is working with the new version of the dll.

When I deleted that folder on my friend's machine, I seem to remember that I had to do some of the folders separately, taking ownership of them and their contents and then giving myself full control over them. It was a very tedious process, but I got them all eventually!

Did you replace the dll? You'll still have to do that!

Yes, the Windows Update page will lose its list of updates that you installed in the past, but they should all still appear in Add/Remove Programs so you can still uninstall them, if they can be uninstalled of course, some can't. You will need to have the "show updates" option checked there of course.

Try running the Windows Update Troubleshooter. This will reset everything on Windows Update and might kick it back into life. You may well still have to replace the muweb.dll afterwards.

From my first hand experience with actually doing the update (which I quickly undid!) "ready to install" actually means ready to download and install. I doubt if the files are already on the machine, especially if the C:\$WINDOWS.~BT isn't present. It's around a 2GB download for the upgrade from Windows 8.1, probably more if it's a Windows 7 machine. It's certainly not going to happen suddenly, it took ages when i did it.

You could try the Windows Update Troubleshooter. That does a lot of resetting of Windows Update, and might fix things for you. You will lose your update history.

@Odos270 Do you have a System Restore point available from before this all happened? I used that on a friend's computer to reset Windows Update to working normally again.

Sounds like you're probably OK to reboot in that case. Windows Update may try to start the Windows 10 download routine again, but you should be able to abort it.

Do you have a hidden C:\$WINDOWS.~BT folder on your drive? If so, trash it, as that's where all the Windows 10 installation files are. You will need to take ownership. Once you've done that, Windows 10 should not be able to install even if it tries after the reboot. What state this will leave Windows Update in I don't know I'm afraid.

LOL! I do have to say that after spending a while poking around Windows 10, I was actually quite glad to see Windows 8.1 back again! As with all new operating systems I'm sure it's very much just a matter of getting used to it, but I didn't much like what I saw at first glance. It did seem to have some advantages, for instance they seem to have dropped the annoying restriction that apps won't run unless you have the screen set to at least 768 pixels vertical resolution, something that's a bugbear on my netbook because it only has a 1024x600 screen! I played (very briefly!) with the Cortana search engine, but backed out pretty quick when it said I had to sign in to Windows with a Microsoft Account to use it, and implied that this was permanent and irreversible. No thanks! The only things I lost restoring the backup were my offline files, which I had to completely re-synchronise, and my Windows Update history, which was annoying. Why that isn't preserved in the backup I have no idea.

Well the restore of the System Image Backup was successful I'm very glad to say, and I've now got Windows 8.1 back. It also restored Windows XP of course so I had to reapply a few updates there, but generally no problem. No worry with the licensing either I'm pleased to say. I'll keep an eye on the guys working on a GMA 3600 driver for Windows 8-10 here, and I may have another go if they come up with anything.

I very much doubt if the graphics driver would have been stable even if I had suppressed the TDR crash, but thanks for that reference! I'm now restoring my System Image Backup, so I will see if it does indeed put me back where I was before! Watch this space......

Well sadly I'm now at the point of giving up with Windows 10 on my netbook. As I was warned, the graphics driver is completely incompatible, even more so than with Windows 8.1. It installs fine, and the lock screen and logon screen are fine, but it crashes as soon as it tries to load the desktop (VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE) and try as I might I cannot resolve this. There are people working on a driver for the Intel GMA 3600 for Windows 10, but there's nothing available as yet. It's annoying, because it must be so close to working. If I change to the basic display driver, and then update to the Intel driver while the machine is running, it installs and the display changes to the correct resolution, and it seems fine, but as soon as I reboot it crashes again. Rather annoyingly, I don't have the option in the recovery menu to roll back to Windows 8.1. I did a reset of the machine at one point and told it to remove everything, and that might have removed the option, although the old OS is still there in the Windows.old folder, there seems to be no way now to get back to it from within Windows 10. I'm going to try the backup I've got of the whole system on an external drive, and see if I can restore from that.