24H2 update causes very long boot times

[petben]

Hello, after installing the 24H2 update we are finding booting computers take 6 mins+ hanging at start.

 

Procmon64 boot logging shows 1000's of entries as below which we think relates to Apps, The Store, Appx etc:

 

ReadFile - SUCCESS - C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd

 

On a computer that hasn't updated and is not having slow boot there's none of these entries.

 

All Apps are up-to-date and there's nothing waiting in Windows Update or any issues with firewall/filtering.

 

Any ideas? Maybe it's something totally different?

 

Thanks

[supportman]

I've not seen this personally with 24H2

[mavhc]

Is that every time you reboot it, or just once? What do the procmon timestamps show? do these 1000 events each take 0.3 seconds? do they happen after a second boot?

[DarkMaster]

we just imaged 10 brand new machines with 24h2 and they were so slow to image and then install software through sccm we re-imaged with 23h2 and they are so much faster

[Oaktech]

Not something I'm seeing here. Just done a whole room of 30 onto 24h2 using WICD sticks and intune registration.

[Hoyt]

Petben if the 24H2 update was applied to existing Windows installations I have on occasion seen it take a long time on the first boot.

 

I must admit whenever Microsoft comes up with a major update I just create a new image from scratch for our most popular machines using installation media at the current version. If you keep having this problem maybe carve a machine out of the herd and try that.

[petben]

This does not happen with fresh imaged computers, straight onto 24H2, but if windows updates from a previous version e.g. 22H2 to 24H2 then the boot slows. every boot. It's like there's new Apps available in the update but they can not apply.

[mavhc]

Every boot even to the same user? if you login then off still slow? with reboot in between is it different?

[petben]

Every boot yes. I can’t see the relevance of those App requests being logged..,

[Hoyt]

This does not happen with fresh imaged computers, straight onto 24H2, but if windows updates from a previous version e.g. 22H2 to 24H2 then the boot slows. every boot. It's like there's new Apps available in the update but they can not apply.

 

Petben we are somewhat jurrasic in how we handle things where I work. Sometimes when we get machines that do not like automated updates I will copy the ISO file of the version of Windows I want to update to onto the hard drive, mount it, then run setup telling it to keep all settings and data. Once I answer that basic set of questions the rest is automated. I realize this invokes more manual labor but I have had to fall back on it from time to time.

 

Got some alerts from Sophos this week and sure enough a couple of machines failed the round of automatic updates way back when they required Windows 10 to be at version 22H2. I copied the 22H2 ISO file to the local hard drive and ran it and all went well.

 

Maybe try to update one that way. If it freaks out and you feel masochistic take a machine at 22H2, copy the 23H2 ISO file to it and run it to see if it freaks out then. If that works just for grins next do the same thing with the 24H2 ISO file.

[mikes]

I built 2 rooms on 24H2 direct  and also upgraded some Win 10 laptops to 24H2, the first logon was very slow but after that pupil logons are very quick. Staff logons still take a while (putting the black screen with "please wait while we..."  which will be a GPO I haven't set but pupils are generally logged on here in 5 - 10 seconds. First logon took 2 - 3 minutes but I never found out why.  Ours is a fairly basic 24H4 image done with SCCM then all the software installs afterwards via SCCM

[Lxshm]

it takes ages on apps installation if you upgrade from 23H2, but when you fresh install 24H2 for some time it is quick logons but then after few weeks it starts to hang on apps installation again

[kennysarmy]

Not entirely similar but we're seeing around 1 in 20 to 1 in 50 users get just a black screen when they logon. The fix is to CTRL+ALT+DEL - Sign Out and then attempt to sign in again.

 

 

[Cat_Jam148]

4 minutes ago, kennysarmy said:

Not entirely similar but we're seeing around 1 in 20 to 1 in 50 users get just a black screen when they logon. The fix is to CTRL+ALT+DEL - Sign Out and then attempt to sign in again.

 

Yeah, we're also getting this on machines which were upgraded to 24H2 rather than a fresh install. Not happening to all of our machines, just our older VeryPC Flex Micro machines and haven't been able to pin down the cause. 

 

Probably will end up just doing a fresh install of 24H2 as that solves the problem.

[kennysarmy]

3 minutes ago, Cat_Jam148 said:

 

Yeah, we're also getting this on machines which were upgraded to 24H2 rather than a fresh install. Not happening to all of our machines, just our older VeryPC Flex Micro machines and haven't been able to pin down the cause. 

 

Probably will end up just doing a fresh install of 24H2 as that solves the problem.

 

We have also started re-imaging our DT devices which is where this issue seems to be the worst, we're monitoring to see if we get any issues on the ones we've freshly imaged.

[mikes]

actually we do get the black screen - same thing 1 in 20 gets a black screen and has to CTRL + ALT + DEL and sign out and sign back in - looks like it's a typical MS beta release issue then to me. This is on fresh imaged 24H2's

Edited March 20, 2025 by mikes

[kennysarmy]

17 hours ago, mikes said:

actually we do get the black screen - same thing 1 in 20 gets a black screen and has to CTRL + ALT + DEL and sign out and sign back in - looks like it's a typical MS beta release issue then to me. This is on fresh imaged 24H2's

 

Damn, so it's happening on re-imaged too, was hoping it was just on those that were "upgraded"

 

Do you know if anyone with this issue has raised it with Microsoft?

[kennysarmy]

21 hours ago, Cat_Jam148 said:

 

Yeah, we're also getting this on machines which were upgraded to 24H2 rather than a fresh install. Not happening to all of our machines, just our older VeryPC Flex Micro machines and haven't been able to pin down the cause. 

 

Probably will end up just doing a fresh install of 24H2 as that solves the problem.

 

Can you post up the spec of the devices you're getting the issue of black screen during logon and driver versions so we can see if there is any commonality with our devices?

[mikes]

We are using Lenovo desktops - AMD ones with onboard AMD GPU's - I may have seen this issue on a Lenovo Intel laptop but I might be misremembering - it happens on our new AMD Ryzen Lenovo desktops for sure.

I hadn't done any further investigating on what causes it/diagnosing it though

[kennysarmy]

On 21/03/2025 at 12:46, mikes said:

We are using Lenovo desktops - AMD ones with onboard AMD GPU's - I may have seen this issue on a Lenovo Intel laptop but I might be misremembering - it happens on our new AMD Ryzen Lenovo desktops for sure.

I hadn't done any further investigating on what causes it/diagnosing it though

 

Is your AV Sophos?

[mikes]

It is yeah - though I think I saw this issue on our machines before I had deployed it - I could be misremembering

[kennysarmy]

We are seeing the "Black Screen" when logging on issue most prevalent after a shutdown, it's hard to recreate if the previous user has just logged off.

 

If we reimage a PC it seems fine, so something seems to get screwed in our in-place upgrade which we're doing via the ISO. 

[psydii]

Have others been able to verify @petben's experience? Specifically via boot/logon monitoring with procmon?

 

This feels like it would benefit everybody if a few people could open a ticket with Microsoft...

[kennysarmy]

Used ABTutor to monitor processes during a black screen event at logon.

 

But nothing untoward here?

[kennysarmy]

On 31/03/2025 at 11:44, mikes said:

It is yeah - though I think I saw this issue on our machines before I had deployed it - I could be misremembering

 

It would be worth you taking a PC and removing Sophos to see if things improve, we're doing this test at the moment and early indications are it might improve times.

 

For us, if a student goes to a PC already turned on from a previous logon, they logon perfectly.

 

If the PC is turned off or restarted they get slow logons, as if the PC is doing something in the background that takes a set amount of time and once it's finished the PC is fine.

 

I'll report back if we get good results from removing SOPHOS from a few more control computers.