Microsoft Is Replacing Those Awful Windows 10 Setup Error Codes

Microsoft is known for being terrible at conveying the meaning of an error in Windows. The worst cases of this occur during Windows setup when you are presented with a long code and require another computer or your smartphone to Google it to try and figure out what's going on. Thankfully, those days should soon be over.

The typical setup error you'll see when installing Windows 10 is a hexadecimal number with examples being 0x800F0923 or 0xC1900101 - 0x20004. The first of those points to a driver or software compatibility problem, while the second relates to a driver error. It's clear to see why you need a search engine to figure them out. But as Ars Technica reports, Windows 10 April 2019 Update (codenamed 19H1) changes the setup process to be more verbose and helpful.

Rather than just presenting a code accompanied by a less than helpful short description, the updated setup process tells you specifically what is wrong and then proceeds to offer solutions that can be carried out right then and there. For example, if you have incompatible apps installed during an upgrade to Windows 10, those apps will be listed and an uninstall button pops up allowing you to remove them and unblock the installation.

Some problems may not be possible to solve from within setup, for example, if you have a DRM system running for some games it will need to be disabled manually before setup can proceed. However, that need to do it manually may just be because this is a new approach and third-party developers haven't been given the relevant information to allow them to support uninstallation or deactivation from within the Windows setup process.

If you're already running Windows 10 then this will be of little value to you right now, but in the future when you build another PC, it's likely there won't be any cryptic error codes to deal with anymore.

Full Article: https://www.pcmag.com/news/366290/microsoft-is-replacing-those-awful-windows-10-setup-error-co