Windows 10 Anniversary Update Locking-Up After Login For Some Unlucky Users

As a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to back up your important data prior to installing any type of major update. That includes the Anniversary Update for Windows 10, essentially a modern day Service Pack, which seems to be tripping up some systems. If you head over to reddit, you'll find several complaints of PCs not responding shortly after logging in after applying the update.

Reddit user SoloWingX brought the issue to attention with an ongoing post describing his initial problem and what effect various suggested troubleshooting steps have had on his setup. SolowingX says that "everything went fine" during the actual update process on his primary PC, but "after logging in everything works for like 20 seconds. After that if I only mouse over the Start area, Taskbar, the black part simply, it freezes and I get a message that Windows is not responding."

Windows 10

SoloWingX says he tried disabling every third-party program that fires up when Windows starts. He also tried reinstalling with Microsoft's Media Creation Tool, as was suggested in the forum thread, along with a bunch of other tips. None of it has worked.

What makes the situation even more perplexing is that it doesn't appear tied to a particular setup or hardware device, it's affecting all kinds of configurations. SoloWingX's setup consists of an Intel Core i5-4460 processor, AMD Radeon R9 270X graphics card, Gigabyte Z97 motherboard, and a solid state drive. Some users with hard drive drives instead of SSDs have also reported freezing problems.

"To all affected people, we haven't yet found a definite solution, so the only option to get a working PC at the moment is to roll back to a previous build in case you updated," SoloWingX summarizes things at the end of his lengthy post.

When applying the Anniversary Update, be sure you have time to test it out. Microsoft made the decision to shorten the period in which you can roll back Windows to a previous build from 30 days to just 10 days. If you're about to head out of town or go on vacation, you should probably wait until you return before applying the update so that you can test things out and, if need be, roll back to a previous Windows build until Microsoft sorts this out.