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Windows 10 'Suface Book' update error - 0x80070005

Hello,

I have noticed that my Windows 10 'Surface Book' machine has an update error. The full text is:
"Microsoft driver update for Surface Base Firmware Update - Error 0x80070005"

Having done some research on this I discover that this error code is to do with 'access denied' associated with the registry. I found this link which gave a good explanation of a potential fix in this Microsoft Support article

I downloaded the SubInACL tool, created the .CMD file as instructed, and ran it 'as administrator' and received thousands and thousands of errors. Manually I opened REGEDIT (as administrator) and went to one of the keys it was trying to update (taken from another web page which claimed to have the solution) - 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing' - and looked at the permissions properties.

I saw that 'Administrators' and 'SYSTEM' both had Read access but not Full Control. When I tried to give them Full Control to this key I got an explicit 'Access is denied' error message. Running this in Safe Mode also made no difference.

Question 1: Should the Administrators and SYSTEMS groups have Full Control of keys within the registry, or are they only supposed to be able to read things?

Question 2: All of the resources I found for this problem related to Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.1 only. I found no mention of Windows 10. Could this be a reason why the 'solution' I tried for this problem didn't work?

Question 3: How do I get rid of this Windows Update error? Without a KB article number, where can I manually get hold of the update package? The Microsoft Support site just says it will be installed automatically, except it isn't.

Hope you can help,

Angus

McKnife

Q1 There are many keys where admins have only read permission, that's normal. The system account has more access rights, but still only read access to some folders or registry keys. To modify that, take ownership of the folder and its subfolders/subkeys.
Q2 no, Win10 behaves the same way.
Q3 Hard to say. To restore registry permissions to deault, you can use an inplace upgrade of windows. Download the latest win10 ISO, mount it, start setup and select to upgrade. It will keep settings, files and programs. https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10
Afterwards, normally update problems are gone.

AngusK

ASKER

I'm given two options on that Windows 10 web page: Update Now and Download Tool Now. Suggesting "inplace" upgrade (implying the Update Now option) and "download the latest" (implying the Download Tool option) is ambiguous. Which would you recommend?

McKnife

I'd always prefer download to get the ISO which might need again, later.

AngusK

ASKER

Thanks. It will take a while over my 2 Mbit connection!

McKnife

Awaiting your feedback.

AngusK

ASKER

Still waiting for a free half day to get this organised. I've downloaded the ISO but honestly didn't think it would be a question which would require me reinstalling my machine. I have a full time job too :-/

McKnife

No one talked about reinstalling. The inplace upgrade repairs your installation by reinstalling the system components while leaving programs, data and settings untouched. It takes a while (depending on your hard drive's speed between 30 and 90 minutes), but it is completely hands-free.

AngusK

ASKER

It's an SSD drive. I thought it would be more involved. Sorry.

AngusK

ASKER

FYI I've just hit the 2 hour mark and it is still only 14% of the way through 'Checking for updates'. Not quite the 30-90 minute job I had hoped :-(

AngusK

ASKER

After finally finishing the updates it started with the upgrade and, after a little while longer, reset the machine to continue configuring updates. Eventually it failed and restored the original operating system.

Booting back into the admin account I am told that it failed in the "SAFE_OS phase with an error during INSTALL_DRIVERS operation".

Any ideas what went wrong? I've looked it up online and notice that this can happen many times for many different reasons, but each have a different hex code. Mine is "0x80070002 - 0x20007". What does that mean?

Note: This is a Microsoft Surface Book laptop, so hopefully any drivers within the Windows 10 installation should be compatible ... shouldn't they?
Error-message.JPG

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McKnife

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AngusK

ASKER

Uninstalled antivirus and the inplace upgrade worked. It does make me wonder if that was what was stopping the Windows Update in the first place. It is was a patch which changed core files (identified as critical by the AV software) then the AV self-defence may have blocked it from proceeding. Sound plausible?

The long and the short of it is that the upgrade worked, the updates worked, and I now have my AV reinstalled.

Thank you for your help.

McKnife

AV software is often blamed for doing this and that, but stopping windows updates? Rather not. I guess simply some permissions were corrupted and the inplace upgrade reset those.

AngusK

ASKER

Either way, I'm glad it is likely to now be solved. Curious how the permissions were reset in the first place. Is there a way I can check that they are definitely correct?

McKnife

"the permissions" is a broad term. Any file has permissions, any registry key - in other words: millions. The inplace upgrade does reset permissions for system fies to defaults - nothing I would question or feel a need to check.

AngusK

ASKER

Thanks for all your help.