Windows 10 is excellent but it's easy to break.

[Recon-UK]

I'm not a noob when it comes to my Os's, i usually customize them to my liking and turn off background services i don't need like i am sure most people who do with a bit of experience.

Windows 10 has served me for around 12 months give or take, i have not had a stop watch so bear with me.

Yesterday i saw the Windows XP theme and well it was like a nostalgic dream ya know... just looks awesome.
So i typed in Google, Windows 10 XP themes.
Came to a site that seemed credible and believe me i usually know when i am at a dodgy site. I(t had 2 versions and a guide on how to install the XP themes from Deviant Art.

http://www.intowindows.com/windows-xp-themes-for-windows-10/

WARNING DO NOT FOLLOW THE GUIDE IT WILL BREAK YOUR OS.

It required a third party app to enable custom themes which to me is normal, i remember back on Windows 7 i used a registry tweak and some third party app to do it on there and it was glorious.

So i do what i am told in the guide, yep ok, theme loaded but something was not right, the taskbar no longer existed it was replaced by a grey area with nothing there, ok so i thought i did something wrong, so i looked again and no i followed the instructions to a tee.

I then came to the conclusion it don't work for me for whatever reason and began to undo what i had done, uninstalled UXstyles and removed the custom themes from the themes folder.


I then restarted my PC.

Here comes the death of Windows 10 64 bit Pro.

It loads up but as logging in the screen flickers from black to grey to the windows login screen in an infinite loop, the only way to stop it is to hold the power off switch and hard stop the PC.

Windows 10 repair disk... you cannot get one unless you have Windows 10 installed, ok so i installed Win 10 to a spare HDD and got myself a burnt copy of it.

I boot it up to try and repair my OS, no luck at all, in every case it would say failed with an error code. Ok so automated stuff is not working.

I open CMD and try what i know best, i chkdsk to check integrity and errors, it found 1 or 2 and was able to fix it. I then do SFC /scannow... this failed every time, it also failed to find any operating system on that hard disk.

So now i have Windows 7 installed like an old friend and will have to use use my Win 10 drive as the application drive, all my games etc, i will have to manually erase the operating system.




TLDR.

Do not try to do anything to Windows 10 it's VERY finicky.

 

[EarthDog]

Or, just what you did there makes it finicky?

Thanks for the warning... I will take my chances. God Bless images and NVMe based drives for quick returns to normal!

 

[qubit]

@Recon-UK I'm not really surprised that it borked W10.

Microsoft doesn't like the look and feel changed by third party themes, so it doesn't support it and signs the code and data required to set it, allegedly for security* reasons. Therefore, having W10 break so completely is a great way to discourage people from doing it. I don't like this practice and would like to mod mine, but for the aggro it can cause it's just not worth it for me and Microsoft wins.

*May or may not be true, I don't know. However, I suspect that they don't want the look changed for marketing reasons more than anything else.

 

[micropage7]

thats why i prefer waiting before using new os
at least make sure of myself that it wont give me another spinning when it aint work

 

[Recon-UK]

To manually remove your OS you need to use Take Ownership for whichever OS version you are using to manually remove Windows 10, all folders and files will be inaccessible because Windows 10 is incredibly tight with user control... i hate that, even on 10 with my own files and i'm admin i could not modify or move things... but yeah.

 

[GreiverBlade]

well i use 10 on 2 of my rigs (1 now, i had to get rid of the compact one ) the only issue i had was: window explorer unresponsive while a USB3.0 stick was plugged on USB3.1 socket ... the only weird thing i encountered so far ...

although good to know about third party app working on theme can break the OS ... that's a nice warning (at your expense tho )

 

[Nosada]

I just bought myself a donkey, and the farmer who sold me the donkey said it was a sturdy donkey. But I didn't like the donkey's face, I wanted it to look like a horse. So I got this "donkey-face-remodeling-tube" from a company called Smith and Wesson, placed it against his head, and pulled the trigger.

Now my donkey is broken. It only rolls downhill and sounds like a french chansonnier. Beware of this farmer, he sells shoddy donkeys.

 

[Kursah]

There are more commands we could've used to attempt and OS repair on 10, using DISM if you had the right kind of bootable media for the installation process (needing install.wim instead of install.esd on the ISO/bootable media, or a conversion is required...at least in my experience, the ESD doesn't load properly with the DISM repair commands... for repairing Win10).

Honestly if you truly wanted the XP UI experience you should've installed the Hyper-V feature, downloaded or created an install ISO for XP, and fired up a virtual machine to play with.

But I understand why you were messing around @Recon-UK , but there are always inherent risks when doing such a task..changing the GUI. Doesn't matter if its Linux, OSX, Android, iOS, Windows...there's always a chance to bork it up. Live and learn, but it was user error that caused this mess, not the OS. Let's make sure you keep that clear and point the finger in the correct direction when placing blame. I'm not saying 10 is perfect, because it sure as hell isn't...but when you decide to change system files as admin, and you click that Yes to go beyond the warning, you're making that conscious decision to potentially screw things up. It's risk vs. reward!

Thank you for the warning on not following those instructions, but I can hardly blame Windows 10 for being finicky on that front. Sure they might not make it as easy to change it how YOU want it changed, that seems more like them controlling their sandbox more-so than making the OS finicky. What is truly finicky here is the mod that the user installed that caused the OS to no longer function properly.

At the end of the day, as I said before, risk vs. reward, live and learn, this kinda stuff happens...doesn't matter the OS or platform...making changes like this always come with risks. I've seen folks take down previous versions of Windows (pretty much ALL of them) doing similar that you tried here...the biggest thing to come out of it is always the same, user error made the issue occur. Without user action, the issue wouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

[Recon-UK]

There are more commands we could've used to attempt and OS repair on 10, using DISM if you had the right kind of bootable media for the installation process (needing install.wim instead of install.esd on the ISO/bootable media, or a conversion is required...at least in my experience, the ESD doesn't load properly with the DISM repair commands... for repairing Win10).

Honestly if you truly wanted the XP UI experience you should've installed the Hyper-V feature, downloaded or created an install ISO for XP, and fired up a virtual machine to play with.

But I understand why you were messing around @Recon-UK , but there are always inherent risks when doing such a task..changing the GUI. Doesn't matter if its Linux, OSX, Android, iOS, Windows...there's always a chance to bork it up. Live and learn, but it was user error that caused this mess, not the OS. Let's make sure you keep that clear and point the finger in the correct direction when placing blame. I'm not saying 10 is perfect, because it sure as hell isn't...but when you decide to change system files as admin, and you click that Yes to go beyond the warning, you're making that conscious decision to potentially screw things up. It's risk vs. reward!

Thank you for the warning on not following those instructions, but I can hardly blame Windows 10 for being finicky on that front. Sure they might not make it as easy to change it how YOU want it changed, that seems more like them controlling their sandbox more-so than making the OS finicky. What is truly finicky here is the mod that the user installed that caused the OS to no longer function properly.

At the end of the day, as I said before, risk vs. reward, live and learn, this kinda stuff happens...doesn't matter the OS or platform...making changes like this always come with risks. I've seen folks take down previous versions of Windows (pretty much ALL of them) doing similar that you tried here...the biggest thing to come out of it is always the same, user error made the issue occur. Without user action, the issue wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Forgot to mention but DISM is the one that report no OS.

 

[Kursah]

Well if the drive is not mounted, then you need to clarify that the OS isn't live/mounted to point it correctly. DISM is more work than SFC and CHKDSK...and maybe there was more issues than evident. But you cannot repair 10 using DISM without a good Install.WIM.

Without knowing what you had tried and what errors you received, hard to say if there was much more you could've done. Sounds like you gave it an honest effort though.

 

[Recon-UK]

Well if the drive is not mounted, then you need to clarify that the OS isn't live/mounted to point it correctly. DISM is more work than SFC and CHKDSK...and maybe there was more issues than evident. But you cannot repair 10 using DISM without a good Install.WIM.

Without knowing what you had tried and what errors you received, hard to say if there was much more you could've done. Sounds like you gave it an honest effort though.

Yeah i dun goofed but it's a lesson learnt as you have rightly pointed out

Thanks for the information though by the way, that will come in handy for others and myself on the "DISM" command.

 

[Kursah]

If you want some good information, here's some good reading that will hopefully be more helpful than I have been:

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/947821
• http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/7808-dism-repair-windows-10-image.html

As I said with Windows 10, the Microsoft Download Tool that most download Windows 10 from, in the Sources folder has an Install.ESD instead of Install.WIM. Well unfortunately, for a successful DISM repair using Install.WIM as the check against which your OS will be repaired isn't possible with the ESD file. But you can convert the ESD to WIM using DISM as well! It takes a little bit of time but is worth it to have around when you need it!

• https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/125905-change-esd-to-wim

I have debated taking the links and instructions I've shared and add them to a dedicated thread...it is handy to be able to repair your OS instead of wiping and reinstalling as many folks had to do in previous times.