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LockDown32Flag for United States of America

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Windows 10 Upgrade Problems

I have a customer that has taken the plunge and upgraded their computer to Windows 10. They were running Windows 7 Professional. The problem is that their computers keep freezing you to the point the only thing they can to is use the power button to turn them off. As usual getting a consensus is difficult but here is what appears to be true:

1) They all seem to be Optiplex 3020. Dell support (which by the way sucks) won't even consider lending a hand. According to them, even though they are under warranty, it isn't their problem.

2) From what they say it appears to lock up when they are browsing the internet. I reset IE 11 and it did no good. Then I found out that Chrome does it too. I updated the NIC drivers and computer firmware.

 3) It is a hard lockup. Everything is frozen. Not a jet lag. It will not come back. No ctrl-alt-del. The only thing they can do is power down.

Ideas?
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Gene Blake
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Question though...

Do you have any Polycom phones connected to these units?

I've found a repeatable I/O issue with these phones being connected & I am able to constantly replicate the issue.

Also, I've found issues with these units failing to boot or throwing a MoBo failure LED flash code if I have a Parallel-to-USB conversion cable connected to my HP 4050N laser printers...

Figuring all of these issues out about the 3020's has been a PITA
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I don't know the mgf of the phones but they initially had problems because they passed the network through the phone to the computer. It caused so many problems that they ran second network connections just for the phones so at this point they are not even related to the computers.

I can't believe Dell support. Why bother?
These phones were also daisy chained network connections, but it wasn't the network connection causing the problem, it was the USB cord attached between the VOIP phones and the computers that was causing the I/O problem.

Dell has been useless with all of the support for these units. I've stopped referring to Dell for anything other than part replacement.

Surprisingly, the newest Win10 image hasn't required any additional drivers to be downloaded/installed after the re-image
I agree with trying the Media Creation Link offered above.

Before you do that, uninstall ALL vendor driver helper applications. Lenovo and Dell made a bunch of these things that are not Windows 10 compliant.

Uninstall ALL helper applications and any drivers you can. Then start the Media Creation Link, click on Upgrade to Windows 10, allow drivers to update, click on Keep Data, do not keep applications and let Windows 10 install fresh.
When I put together a Dell I never, ever put on any of their bloatware. It was a standard Windows 10 upgrade. I have tried it both ways. I have uninstalled all Dell drivers and let Microsoft drivers rule. No change. Now I am going back and download the Dell drivers to see what happens.

I have always been under the impression that these hard freeze issues were harware related but all the Optiplex 3020s ran flawlessly under Windows 7. I don't believe the phone have a USN connection to the computer. They just have a network cable to the wall.
Dell support .... won't even consider lending a hand  <-- Maybe the hardware is not Windows 10 compliant.
If you look on their web page it is "certified" for Windows 10. What a mess....
I am not sure what to suggest. On a Lenovo machine certified for Windows 10 with Windows 10 drivers, a fresh install from the Media Creation Link has always worked.

Did you try upgrading BIOS, Chipset and Video drivers before doing the fresh install.
I haven't done a fresh install yet. That is going to be the last thing I try. These customers have all their software set up the way they want it. They run simple, simple stuff. Mostly internet. The BIOS is updated and so are all the drivers. So much for Windows 10 being stable.
I would bite the bullet and do a fresh install. Then install software slowly to see if any customer software breaks Windows 10.

I had to upgrade Symantec, Adobe, HP Printer driver and other software made specifically for Windows 10.
Well... that is were I started. Windows upgrades have never, ever gone well. I am an advocate of wiping and starting from ground zero but Microsoft made that impossible too. You get the free Windows 10 you had to upgrade. That is install one. Then you had to wipe and reload. There is install two. Contrary to what people have been saying the the Windows 10 upgrade is stable and great in reality it is just like all their other upgrade going back to Windows 95. Don't do it.
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i have had also my share of windows 10 upgrades  turning in to a mess - look here :
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28941608/No-internet-after-Windows10-update-and-restore-to-win7.html

the only way i could get it working was a fresh install - so that's my suggestion : backup the data and do a fresh install
i also recommend this for windows 10 :  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
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Believe it or not there are no video drivers supplied by Dell. They use Intel HD Graphics and come in via Windows Updates. I am sure a fresh install probably would work but this particular customer has 15 of these and a fix would be preferred. The only issue they are reporting is locking up in Internet Explorer.
Hey man, I know the feeling, I've had to deal with these same Dell units since coming to this company and my suggestion is still the same...

Punch the monkey in the face and do a fresh install

Or at least try it on one system and see if any benefit is experience before trying to do it to the remaining 14 units.
I am getting closer Gene :) Today one of the problem children was again in IE and got the usual "Internet Explorer Caused a problem and need to close". At that point IE closed and the entire desktop started flashing on and off about every second. I even had her power off and when she turned it back on the screen flashing continued. I was a little amazed that it continued to flash even after a cold power down.

My first thought was try safe mode but... Windows 10 doesn't have a safe mode. So how do you get in and do something like uninstall a video driver or do diags if there is no safe mode in WiIndows 10?
For lack of anything better to try I uninstalled every driver that had the word "Dell" in it. I came across a thread that said Windows 10 contains all drivers for the Optiplex 3020 so I used the ones that came with Windows and ditched Dell. Seems to have worked.