WIndows 10 on USB - NVME - version upgrade start (restart) keeps failing, maybe some BCD fault..

[ruthan]

I have Win10 18h03 installed on USB-NVME, its much faster than any USB3 flashdisk which i have tried, even speedy ones, but they still keep have quite slow small files operations and probably problem with parallel file access..  System responsiveness its and operations are much faster.

  Problem is that, that i cant ugprade from 1803 version to 22h2.. by any ways, all checks seems ok, all logs setup longs no error, CBS.log ok,  sfc fine.. and Windows update keep it pushing with every boot, redownloading and trying to install.

     I have tried also Media creating tool, but at the end of blue full screen installing mode, i get install failed messege (Small white message box - Instalation failed in case of using ISO) before reboot after 99% or.. machine is rebooting to continue with upgrade initialize to blue or violet screen, but its never happening.. like upgrade is was not scheduled.. Even Windows update is keeping asking for restart to finish upgrade - but again no upgrade is inicialized..

   I have tried Minitool Windows update tool, but it seems to be only some new Frontend over Windows update.. and i did not found any other alternative tool to do the same..

   I suspect, that problem is USB-  or USB-install.. im not sure how upgrad works, if something has to be added in BCD file, or some preboot mode is incialized by other way.. to check it or force manually.

  I found that in Pather directory (C:\$WINDOWS.~BT) always full new full ~30 GB install ready to go, prepared.. no errors there, but its not applied.. I have tried to add "PatherDirectory"\  system32\winloadx.exe into BCD, its starting to boot, but after 21c error, so this probably not the right way how to start the ugprade..

   I wonder if just rewrite all new install created by Windows update - files over original install would not be a solution, i have backups, im not exact process how upgrade is made, but its probably install to new directory and if install its successfull it rename old Windows directory to Windows.old and new one to Windows , os maybe i can do it manually.

  This upgrading process at least on my machines is allways nightmare, some MS scripts seems really not clever, hardcoded parsers with poor exception handling and messeging. 

  I hope is not typical sniffing other disk problem.. because i have on machine physical M.2 - with Win10 + Linux - which is hassle to remove and could not be disabled in bios..and some data ntfs HDD.

I event log system i see this, im not sure if its related:
The WinRM service cannot migrate the listener with Address * and Transport HTTP. A listener that has the same Address and Transport configuration already exists.

And this:
SearchIndexer (11816,D,23) Windows: The version store for this instance (0) has reached its maximum size of 128Mb. It is likely that a long-running transaction is preventing cleanup of the version store and causing it to build up in size. Updates will be rejected until the long-running transaction has been completely committed or rolled back. 
Possible long-running transaction: 
    SessionId: 0x00000253293910C0:2b3968fffffffc 

Update:

I have tried Media creation method after while again and there is indeed some BCD hell error:

 BCD: BcdCopyObjectEx: Failed to enumerate source elements. Target: {5189b25c-5558-4bf2-bca4-289b11bd29e2} Flags: 0x4 Status: c0000034[gle=0x00000002]
2025-07-12 00:11:32, Error                 IBSLIB BCD: Failed to clone store. Status: c0000034[gle=0x00000002]
2025-07-12 00:11:32, Error                 IBSLIB BCD: BcdExportStore: Failed clone BCD to \??\C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Rollback\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD. Status: c0000034[gle=0x00000002]

MSconfig cant edit BCD entry just 1 line, BootICE could. It wasnt easy forme make booting installation from normal flashdisk to NVME and start boot loader, so i used multiple tools to try to generate bootable EFI entry and BCD, there is probably something non standard.

Edited Friday at 10:22 PM by ruthan

[halohalo]

Microsoft removed Windoews To Go feature since Windows 10 version 2004. Maybe you can install latest version of windows 10 using 3rd party utilities, but it does not mean you won't have any problem.