HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 4,045
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
This was my Monday morning wake up call today. Residential customer got H2 over the weekend and did the reboot this morning. When it came up it only listed a local user named "Test", and the "Sign In" button. No ability to choose a user. The original user had a Microsoft account, btw.
Once signed in, I browsed the disk and confirmed the main account's user directory still existed - it did. If I go into settings, there are no other users listed, save the 'Test' user. Unfortunately, this user is not an administrator, so I can't do much. I checked the registry key for displaying all users on the login screen. It was set to 0, so I changed it to 1 and rebooted, but no change.
I tried to roll back H2, but it was not listed as an installed update. Running Winver clearly shows 20H2 as the current version though. I tried to run system restore, but I got the "Do you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer?" dialog, with only a "No" button. No Yes button. Ok, weird. I tried clicking where the button should be as well as 'Alt-Y', but no dice. That dialog also says "To continue, enter an admin user name and password", but doesn't provide a way to do so. Next I tried Recover in the Settings screens to 'Return to a previous version of Windows', but got the same dialog box missing the Yes button as before.
Next confirmed that they had a backup of their data, then did a manual search for updates, which identified a .net update and KB4586781, which is an update to H2. I was hopeful, but loading this update and rebooting also did not present the main user to login. A second manual update search identified KB4586853, also an update to H2, but loading that and rebooting has not changed the problem. I note that these two updates now show in the list of previous updates and are available for uninstall, but still no listing for the original update to 20H2.
Browsing the disk, there is a Windows.old folder dated yesterday - so that had to be created by the 20H2 update. Also, any task I try to do that requires administrative access gives me the same "Do you want to allow this app to make changes" dialog missing the "Yes" button. This pretty much limits my options.
So, scrambled permissions and/or scrambled user account. I'm thinking that I'm in Nuke & Pave territory, but wanted to post in case anyone else has run into this symptom and found a clever way out.
Once signed in, I browsed the disk and confirmed the main account's user directory still existed - it did. If I go into settings, there are no other users listed, save the 'Test' user. Unfortunately, this user is not an administrator, so I can't do much. I checked the registry key for displaying all users on the login screen. It was set to 0, so I changed it to 1 and rebooted, but no change.
I tried to roll back H2, but it was not listed as an installed update. Running Winver clearly shows 20H2 as the current version though. I tried to run system restore, but I got the "Do you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer?" dialog, with only a "No" button. No Yes button. Ok, weird. I tried clicking where the button should be as well as 'Alt-Y', but no dice. That dialog also says "To continue, enter an admin user name and password", but doesn't provide a way to do so. Next I tried Recover in the Settings screens to 'Return to a previous version of Windows', but got the same dialog box missing the Yes button as before.
Next confirmed that they had a backup of their data, then did a manual search for updates, which identified a .net update and KB4586781, which is an update to H2. I was hopeful, but loading this update and rebooting also did not present the main user to login. A second manual update search identified KB4586853, also an update to H2, but loading that and rebooting has not changed the problem. I note that these two updates now show in the list of previous updates and are available for uninstall, but still no listing for the original update to 20H2.
Browsing the disk, there is a Windows.old folder dated yesterday - so that had to be created by the 20H2 update. Also, any task I try to do that requires administrative access gives me the same "Do you want to allow this app to make changes" dialog missing the "Yes" button. This pretty much limits my options.
So, scrambled permissions and/or scrambled user account. I'm thinking that I'm in Nuke & Pave territory, but wanted to post in case anyone else has run into this symptom and found a clever way out.
Last edited:
