Windows 10 May 2019 Update is Freezing Midway, Here's How to Fix It

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posted on 5 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Microsoft has acknowledged the problem, which freezes Windows 10 PCs from rebooting halfway through the update process.

Microsoft has been going through a bit of a rough patch when it comes to its regular Windows 10 updates. After the April 2019 Windows 10 update brought with itself a glitch that started preventing the PCs from rebooting after the update, the same glitch has returned in the May 2019 updates as well, this time affecting a wider range of users. With the new update, users may find their PCs being frozen halfway through the update process, beyond which the machine fails to reboot.

The latest glitch has been occurring because of an untimely stop command in the system reboot scheme, which leads to a driver variant mismatch and eventually freezes the update process. The problem involves anyone that has system protection switched on, and wishes to restore their respective Windows 10 PCs back to a point before the latest update, which is pretty common among Windows PC users. For such users, during the May 2019 update, a command 'Stop error (0xc000021a)' is executed, preventing the system to initialise the Windows desktop.

This occurs due to a system registry issue, which during the system restore command execution process starts with executing the older drivers and then the latest ones, thereby leading to a system registry mismatch, which in turn freezes the PCs. Microsoft has since acknowledged this problem, but we are not entirely sure as to when might the slew of bugs and glitches on the Windows 10 updates would stop.

To restore and fix this update, open the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), which opens after two unsuccessful attempts to access the Windows 10 desktop are made. Once in WinRE, follow the path -- 'Troubleshoot - Advanced - More recovery options - Startup settings - Restart now'. Once these options are selected, several startup options show up, from which users must select 'Disable driver signature enforcement', which helps them bypass the driver data co-verification in the Windows devices.

While the fix is fairly easy, the popularity of Windows 10 (and its problems) mean that many non-savvy users would find this to be a bit of a bother. Hopefully, the June update would fix these problems as well, alongside the security issues that it addresses.