Bret Harrell's community posts

I appreciate some of the W10 bug reports provided in this thread:

https://windowsreport.com/kb4503293-boot-up-display-issues/
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-kb4507453-cumulative-update-causes-restart-alert-loop/

However, none of them describe what was happening to my computers because of RemoteUtilities 6.10.9.0.

Here are the steps I've found to be the fastest and 100% reliable to fix a PC that has been bricked by RemoteUtilities where it only boots to a black screen with the spinning wheel of death.  This method also doesn't require an administrative account.

• Ins ert W10 1903 USB Install
  
• Power on PC to BIOS boot menu (F12 for Dell)
  
• Wait for the Windows install to load and select your language
  
• Select Repair
  
• Sele ct Troubleshoot
  
• Sele ct Command Prompt
  
• c:
  
• dir  (to verify it's your Windows volume, if not, try drives D and E)
  
• cd Program Files (x86)
  
• cd Remote Utilities - Host
  
• ren rutserv.exe rutserv.exe.old
  

Reboot the PC

I don't think you are understanding the severity of this.  Once the PC has the spinning wheel it's pretty much trashed.  A simple reboot does not fix the problem!!  (I would not be complaining if it was that simple!!!!!)  I've explained this in my previous posts.  Sometimes startup repair will fix it, but not always.  Sometimes startup repair can roll back the update, but not always.

None of my PCs have any problems with Windows Updates when Remote Utilities is not installed.  And I can reproduce this problem with Remote Utilities on multiple PCs 100% of the time with the steps I outlined above by starting with a fresh 1903 install, installing Remote Utilities, and then Windows Updates.

So - you have a version of Remote Utilities that will brick W10 1903 when updates (automatically) install.   I think you need to take a little stronger action here to fix the problem and prevent your other customers from having their PCs bricked because of a conflict between your software and Windows updates.

The only reason most of my PCs were not bricked was because I was lucky enough to have an older version of Remote Utilities still running on many PCs.

Would also like to point out that Remote Utilities 6.10.9.0 has repeatedly crashed fresh installs of W10 1903.  Over the past 2 days I've installed W10 1903 about 20-25 times testing this.  I have not had a single crash on a computer which does not have 6.10.9.0 installed.  So in my case - I'm attributing 100% of my black-screened PCs to Remote Utilities.  
Steps to crash a PC:
1.  Install 1903 (April 2019 version)
2.  Install Remote Utilties 6.10.9.0
3.  Reboot
4.  Install 1st round of Windows patches
5.  Reboot
6.  Spinning Wheel of death
Leave out the step of installing Remote Utilities and the computer will not crash.

Thank you for the response.

I still have a few PCs that are stuck on the black screen.  Most of the others have been reinstalled fr om images or startup repair was able to work.  Interestingly, on some of them the "remove latest Windows update" works, and on others it says it can't remove because there's an installation in progress.  System restore has caused other problems thogh like workstations losing their domain trust.

How the heck do you get into safe mode in Windows 10 when the OS doesn't boot?  Even booting from the W10 1903 ISO under startup repair advanced options the safe mode or startup settings item is missing.  The Internet tells me to pull power on boot up and after a few times a different screen should comesup - but in my case that doesn't seem to work.  

Booting into command prompt and trying this:
Wmic Product wh ere name=”Remote Utilities - Host” call uninstall /nointeractive
doesn't work either - though it will work on the systems which are booted and have not yet crashed.

This is a horrible situation!!!

Came into the office this morning with a portion of my Windows 10 desktops sitting on a black screen with a spinning pinwheel.  Reimaged them and after doing Windows updates and rebooting they crashed again... On 2nd reboot after updates they sit at the spinning wheel screen forever.  I originally thought this was a 1903 issue as I rolled it out early this month.  After imaging and installing fresh Windows from a USB drive for 9 hours on a handfull of working - and trying different combinations of removing GPO's - I finally isolated the cause as Remote Utilities Host 6.10.9.0 - which I had recently deployed.

This only crashes a portion of my desktops - not all of them.  However, my 6.10.9.0 host MSI file will crash a fresh install of 1903 (April edition) on the 2nd reboot.  The fact this was a little intermittent made it extremely difficult to track down.

I've used Remote Utilities for years with no issues - but I'm looking for other options after today!