1903 update working without decrypting and without setup.exe parameters

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1903 update working without decrypting and without setup.exe parameters

Forum: Technical Topics

Creator: Hannes_Rannes

Created: 2019-09-21

Updated: 2019-09-21

Hannes_Rannes - 2019-09-21

Hi,

I know, usually people are reporting behavior when something isn't working although they expected it to. In my case the situation is the other way round.

I wanted to start the upgrade from 1809 to 1903 using the staged installation files on the system, but I noticed that except for the setup.exe, the other source files have been deleted again in the meanwhile. I clicked the upgrade button in the Windows Update settings to get the files again, hoping I could choose the installation time or at least stop the installation to start it again manually with the VeraCrypt parameters.

However the installation started right away and I decided to just do it again manually after it failed because of the system encryption. To my surprise, the upgrade went through successfully with no issues at all.

I was looking for recent reports that the upgrade now natively supports VeraCrypt encrypted installations, but all I could find was indicating even the opposite: "If you are not offered Windows 10 version 1903, try disabling hard drive encryption".

Are you aware of any changes? Any ideas how this could have worked? Did Windows maybe automatically re-use the ReflectDrivers parameters from the 1803 -> 1809 upgrade?

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Mounir IDRASSI - 2019-09-21

Hi,

Thank you for this "positive" report. It is indeed rare to have such kind of feedback.

I don't have an explanation of why it is working on some machine and not on others. I have been able to verify that Microsoft has blocked some machines from receiving the 1903 Upgrade because they are encrypted using VeraCrypt. They are using unknown criteria based on their telemetry to take this decision. Probably the manufacturer of the machine is part of the criteria (for example HP laptops seem to be all affected).

In this context, is it possible to know the brand of your PC?

Concerning the success of the upgrade, this should be normal since VeraCrypt already sets the ReflectDrivers parameter correctly in the file "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WSUS\SetupConfig.ini". I have spent countless of hours trying to understand why it doesn't work on some machines and I even added paranoïd mechanisms in VeraCrypt 1.24-Beta in order to ensure that this file is always correclt populated.

By the way, what version of VeraCrypt were you running when the upgrade succeeded?

Thank you again for the feedback.

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Hannes_Rannes - 2019-09-21

I was just so surprised because I could not find any indication that this should work like that nor any other reports.

I did this on an XMG notebook (Clevo Barebone). I will try to do the same with a VM next week.

I did this with the latest stable - 1.23-HF2.

It seems this is not that new to you though and you have a technical explanation. :)

I checked for the file and I do not have it on my system anymore. However I could find it in the old installation at C:\Windows.old\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WSUS\SetupConfig.ini.

That would if I did another upgrade right now, it would not work anymore. I wanted to ask what triggers the creation of the file, but I think I just figured out how this works.

I manually executed C:\ProgramData\VeraCrypt\SetupComplete.cmd and now the WSUS\SetupConfig.ini file is there again. Looking at its content this should have happened automatically after the upgrade.

Not sure why it didn't, but understanding how this works might already save me a lot of time in the future.

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Mounir IDRASSI - 2019-09-21

Thank you for these information.

As you deduced, the main issue is the file SetupConfig.ini is deleted after an upgrade and so the next upgrade will fail because of its absence. Normally, the PostOOBE in SetupConfig.ini should make Windows call C:\ProgramData\VeraCrypt\SetupComplete.cmd once the upgrade is finished, which in turn will recreate SetupConfig.ini file but somehow this doesn't happen and I was not able to find the reason why.

Thus, I have introduced many mechanisms in 1.24-Beta in order to ensure that this file is recreated if it is not there for some reason which will make the next upgrade work.

Technical users can always manually xecute the file C:\ProgramData\VeraCrypt\SetupComplete.cmd before performing the upgrade (actually before Windows create the upgrade image in the background) in order to be sure that it will fo smoothly.

Anyway, I will take a look again into the issue of SetupConfig.ini not being recreated. Maybe I wil be find something that I didn't find 6 months ago.

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Hannes_Rannes - 2019-09-21

Thanks a lot! I just sent a small donation as I really like your dedication here. :)

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