14 DAY TRIAL // Another day, another bug hitting the newly-released Windows 10 April 2018 Update. This time, it looks like the upgrade process breaks down a number of PCs and makes it impossible to boot to desktop.
The symptoms are similar to those caused by a bug that’s believed to involve Avast Antivirus, though judging from this thread on Microsoft Community forums, the number of systems impacted by the issue has grown significantly in the last few days.
While at this point it’s hard to determine how widespread the bug is, one of the users posting in the linked discussion says they took the computer to a repair shop, only to be told it was the third system experiencing the same problem in just one day.
“I was informed that the configuration had completely corrupted the operating system in all three computers taken in so far today. I have had a new operating system installed and have lost software that I must now re-purchase, not to mention hours lost to work and an entire day waiting for the repair,” the user explained.
Full Windows reinstall required?
In most of the cases, the update appears to install correctly, but when booting to desktop, it all ends up with a black screen displaying the following error message:
“Location is not available C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop is unavailable. If the location is on this PC, make sure the device or drive is connected or the drive is connected or the disc is inserted, and then try again. If the location is on a network, make sure you're connected to the network or Internet, and then try again. If the location still can't be found, it might have been moved or deleted.”
Microsoft hasn’t yet acknowledged the bug and there’s no workaround that’s believed to be resolving the problem in every case, other than a complete Windows reinstall.