I've been having a rough past few days..

KB3135173. This update is meant to fix the problems with users being unable to update or install Windows 10, but, if because of that problem, I can't update Windows to get the update that fixes it, how the hell else am I supposed to fix this?

Spoiler

When I restart during the attempted installation of this update, I get a fatal error (one of them being 80072ee2), something about InkSeg.dll, and then "We couldn't complete the update(s), undoing changes."

I have tried the many fixes I found online several times, including commands for the Command Prompt, the command sfc /scannow in Windows PowerShell which supposedly fixed something the first time I ran it but not this problem, the Windows Update Diagnostic tool, a couple DLL fixers regarding the InkSeg.dll file (which exists in 4 instances on my computer), and something that had me boot the computer in safe mode and change something through the advanced troubleshooting options there.

What else can I do? Something else to note is that I only have a little more than 5GB of storage left on my 32GB SSD which Windows 10 is installed on, and I'm kind of starting to think that might be the reason for this. I've been trying to clean it up by uninstalling and moving programs, defragmenting it and running the Disk Cleanup on it, but that's another issue. Maybe.

Edited February 17, 201610 yr by iansonwheels

4 hours ago, iansonwheels said:

defragmenting it

Never EVER defrag a SSD. It will not do anything but harm it.

59 minutes ago, Starmix said:

Never EVER defrag a SSD. It will not do anything but harm it.

Why is that?

 

 

@Starmix Would you consider my SSD to be toast and suggest that I buy a new, larger one anyway? Would its defragmentation be the cause of the problems I've been getting?

What problems?

23 minutes ago, Starmix said:

What problems?

Besides not being able to update, my NVIDIA driver (installed on the SSD) has stopped working/crashed a few times while not playing games resulting in an invisible Start menu and pop-up menus from the taskbar.

Defragging an SSD would not cause those problems, defragging an SSD is bad because a SSD has a limited number of read/write cycles before it dies which a defragmentation would do a lot of sorting your stuff. On your problem, the easy (probably only) way out is just to backup your stuff and do a clean reinstall of windows instead of sifting thru google results for hours. Since if your windows and drivers are bad, chances are the windows tools to fix it are also screwed up, if after there still are problems its probably a hardware issue.

12 hours ago, propel said:

Defragging an SSD would not cause those problems, defragging an SSD is bad because a SSD has a limited number of read/write cycles before it dies which a defragmentation would do a lot of sorting your stuff. On your problem, the easy (probably only) way out is just to backup your stuff and do a clean reinstall of windows instead of sifting thru google results for hours. Since if your windows and drivers are bad, chances are the windows tools to fix it are also screwed up, if after there still are problems its probably a hardware issue.

I'll reset my PC overnight (as I assume that is a more practical way to reinstall Windows).

Should I back up my files on an external drive before I reset or will this avoid deleting them?

Back them up either way, from prior experience a sick windows can also cause a reset to fail, which might destroy windows enough that you can't even login without crashing.

To be safe, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10   and download a copy of windows 10 to a 4gb + flash drive so that if resetting does fail, you can manually reinstall a new copy of windows which will fix everything. (your windows key is tied to your motherboard so there's no need to worry about authentication)