It all started with a failure to launch Adobe PS Elements 11, with a looping activation error, after Adobe support was no help and tried to troubleshoot by enabling the hidden admin account by "net user administrator /active:yes" and I cut him off, I went into some things:
- create a new admin user and launch, no go
- launch with admin privileges, no go
- reinstall from DVD, from HD, re-enter SN or not, no go
- change C: drive permissions, no go
- recurse C: drive permissions/ownership from TrustedInstaller to Administrator account, BAD - Windows 10 would no longer boot (blue screen of roving cirles... and attempt to repair in Windows RE (recovery environment) and repair startup problems, said it couldn't fix then reported a "WDF_DRIVER_VIOLATION" on next boot along with a BSOD
- What I think happened was the Flexnet licensing got corrupted somehow...
So what happened:
- Download Win10 install via Media Creation tool and place on USB drive.
- Boot computer with USB
- Accept locales, at the botttom "Repair this computer"
- Boot Win 10RE Command prompt
- Run DISKPART, LIST VOL to see which drives are which (use the right ones below)
- Image the original Windows drive to a USB attached backup drive, just in case using:
>DISM.exe /Capture-Image /ImageFile:G:\SSD-whole.wim /CaptureDir:D:\ /Name:"Windows"
100GB on drive went to about 50GB in a .WIM file in <1 hour on USB3.0 backup drive
Manually copy important files, just in case:
>xcopy /e /c /h d:\users\<username>\ g:\ssd
>xcopy /e /c /h "d:\Program Files\" g:\ssd
>xcopy /e /c /h "d:\Program Files (x86)\" g:\ssd
- Once complete, reboot the computer back to the USB, accept locale info
- Custom install
- Delete all partitions on the SSD (including the 10% overprovisioning made for Win7, since Win10 is smarter about SSDs) -- p.s. it wouldn't install anyway since the drive was MBR partitions and not GPT
- Create a new whole-drive partition, let Windows configure Recovery and EFI and GPT partitions
- Install Windows
- Update and reboot as necessary (Windows 10 online activation worked flawlessly to recognize the computer as it was already activated without entering a Product Key)
- Run Disk Management, for the 1TB RAID set, right-click disk and say "Import foreign disk" for both. Allow them to re-sync (this took several hours, and let it finish keeping the computer awake otherwise it will restart from 0) If you interrupt it, you may have to right-click and "reactivate disk"
- Once complete, on the DATA DRIVE, take Ownership with the new default admin account and remove old admin account permissions (says Unknown - S-1-5-.... from previous installation)
- Change Settings>System>Storage to DATA DRIVE for all but applications. (didn't work before ownership correction)
- Install Office (had online subscription and original install ISO, log into MS account to activate)
- Add offline PST file to Outlook (Open & Export, Open Outlook Data File from DATA DRIVE)
- Install MBAM, MBAE (have original product keys)
- Install iTunes
- launch once, accept EULA, close
- launch second time holding SHIFT key, point to remote ITL iTunes Library file (all music and stuff still there)
- Sign-in to authorize the computer
- Connect a phone to create the C:\Users\<usernam>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup directory
- close iTunes
- rename Backup to BackupOld
- open command prompt in ..\MobileSync directory and run >mklink /J "Backup" "D:\iTunes Backup" (this creates a symlink junction to put device backups on a data drive, not the SSD)
- thanks to: http://www.howtogeek.com/164275/how-to-change-the-backup-location-of-itunes-or-any-windows-app/
- Download/Install other software
- Restore Desktop and other files from the XCOPY or DISM image.
