Windows 11 23H2 Clean Install

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[bbearren]

The B side of my dual boot daily driver has gotten very little use for the past several months, primarily just a place to go when I’ve managed to pooch the A side and needed to troubleshoot it from afar. I decided a couple of days ago to do something that I haven’t done in many, many years, and that is a clean install. I used the Media Creation Tool to build a thumb drive with the latest available Windows 11, and got started. I decided to leave the Ethernet cable plugged in.

I ran into some hiccups and had to jump through a couple of hoops that are mainly applicable to my hardware, namely my Asus motherboard. It is a Prime Z690M-Plus D4. Intel Rapid Storage Technology is native on the MB. When I launched my thumb drive and tried to set up Windows 11 Pro, it couldn’t find my NVMe SSD’s; it could only see the SATA SSD’s. After some finagling, I discovered that by disabling Intel RST on the motherboard, all six drives were visible.

It seems that the Windows 11 installation routine has not been updated to the extent that it can detect NVMe drives that are configured for PCIe. I was able to get Windows 11 Pro installed in 28 minutes. In order to use a local account, I selected work or school instead of personal use, and followed those prompts. Windows installed, managed to get itself updated, going through two reboots in the process. Once I got to the desktop, I opened Services, disabled BitLocker and Windows Search (indexing), installed StartAllBack and Revo Uninstaller Pro. Next, I uninstalled Edge and Edge Update. There were some leftovers that needed a reboot to clean up, so I did.

Only, it wouldn’t boot. Just the circle going round and round until finally the blue screen, and “We’ll restart it for you”. Two more of those, and we went into Window Recovery. The BCD Store looked good, side A was side A, side B was now Windows 11, pointing to the right partition where side B had been, but it still wouldn’t boot. I did quite a bit of BCD Store editing, but no joy. So I decided to boot into the A side and do some deeper diving into issues. A wouldn’t boot, either. I was flummoxed for about half an hour.

Then I had an “Aha!” moment, went into UEFI and re-enabled Intel RST, then tried the A side again. It booted right up. So I tried the B side, but still no joy, would not boot. I did some more editing, I restored a drive image of the EFI partition, did some more editing, searching online, but still no joy. I decided to go to bed last night, and put it off ’til today. I had read about preparing a driver package on another USB, and then this morning it dawned on me that on the A side I have Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed in Windows. I figured that if I installed it on the fresh B side, I could get that to boot.

I went back into UEFI, disabled Intel RST, then booted into Windows setup, deleted the Windows 11 partition and reinstalled Windows 11 Pro, opting for a local account again. This time, when I got back to the desktop, the first thing I did after disabling those two services was to install Firefox, set it as default, then download and install Intel Rapid Storage Technology on the fresh B side. I rebooted, went into UEFI, re-enabled Intel RST, exited to the B side, and VOILÀ! There it was!

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

• This topic was modified 11 months ago by bbearren.
• This topic was modified 11 months ago by bbearren.

7 users thanked author for this post.

a, TechTango, Fred, Mr. Austin, Lars220, joep517, RetiredGeek

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The following are my preferences for setting up a fresh Windows 11 Pro Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.3880). Again, after I sorted through my boot issues, I disabled BitLocker and Windows Search in Services.  I installed StartAllBack and Revo Uninstaller Pro. I uninstalled Edge and Edge Update, as well as 15 Apps for which I have no use. I put a shortcut for Process Hacker and O&O Shutup 10 on my desktop (they are both portable apps residing in their own folders on another SSD). I stifled most of the telemetry, and will clean up the rest through disabling some more services.

I have disabled hibernation, which removed hiberfile.sys. I disabled Fast Startup. I’ve set up my pagefile shared with the A side (it has worked well for many, many years) and disabled System Restore. My separate Users partition for the B side is still intact, and I will relocate the standard folders there, using the Location tab in Properties, leaving only AppData, the NTUSER.DAT and LOG files in C:\Users. The library folders I’ll delete; I have my own libraries. My separate Programs partition is also still intact, and the programs and apps I install will all go there rather than on C: drive.

I already have OneDrive setup on the A side, so I will leave it dormant on the B side.  I would also like to point out that the Desktop, Documents etc. folders are not within the OneDrive folder.  They are all separate folders under Users\user.

I will create a standard user account that I will be using routinely on this side, just as I do on the A side. I’m still using the Admin account for getting things installed and moved around to my preferred places.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

7 users thanked author for this post.

a, TechTango, Fred, Mr. Austin, Lars220, joep517, RetiredGeek

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Almost plug & play ;-D
didn’t know that Intel Rapid Storage Technology could give these problems.
Thanks for the heads up
When will Redmond claim this machine to be theirs?

* _ ... _ *

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Fred wrote:

When will Redmond claim this machine to be theirs?

They own the OS, I just license it.  They can’t claim the machine, I own it and don’t license it to Microsoft.  I’ve cut their tentacles.  No ads, no hints, no suggestions, no tips, etc.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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bbearren wrote:

download and install Intel Rapid Storage Technology

Why do you need Intel RST ? You use Optan memory ?

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I don’t think it’s needed, just that *something* default in the BIOS requires it. RST is only a requirement for RAID and more recently, Optane memory, as far as I recall.

When installed on hardware that doesn’t require it, it can sometimes cause issues, and it usually double up on drivers, rather than replacing them, creating more chances of clashes triggering crashes. Not great, avoid installing RST wherever possible.

2 users thanked author for this post.

wavy, Alex5723

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satrow wrote:

I don’t think it’s needed, just that *something* default in the BIOS requires it. RST is only a requirement for RAID and more recently, Optane memory, as far as I recall.

bbearren wrote:

I ran into some hiccups and had to jump through a couple of hoops that are mainly applicable to my hardware, namely my Asus motherboard.

In my case, it’s a requirement for installing Windows 11 and getting the PC to boot into Windows.

Asus knows.

bbearren wrote:

This time, when I got back to the desktop, the first thing I did after disabling those two services was to install Firefox, set it as default, then download and install Intel Rapid Storage Technology on the fresh B side. I rebooted, went into UEFI, re-enabled Intel RST, exited to the B side, and VOILÀ! There it was!

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Ouch. Looks like I dodged that Intel bullet; Gigabyte Z590, 11th Gen i7, 2x NVMe on W7-era SATA drivers + Micron driver for the Crucial P3 and the Samsung 980 Pro is showing as connected via Standard NVM Express Controller (again, W7-era, 2006).

No sign of any RST or VMD in Device Manager.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Why do you need Intel RST ? You use Optan memory ?

No, I don’t use Optane memory, but I do use PCIe NVMe SSD’s, and Intel RST takes them out of the SATA interface and puts them into the PCIe interface.

bbearren wrote:

When I launched my thumb drive and tried to set up Windows 11 Pro, it couldn’t find my NVMe SSD’s; it could only see the SATA SSD’s. After some finagling, I discovered that by disabling Intel RST on the motherboard, all six drives were visible.

That’s why I need Intel RST.  I also have it installed on my NAS OS, where it shepherds my RAID 10 array.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

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bbearren wrote:

I went back into UEFI, disabled Intel RST, then booted into Windows setup, deleted the Windows 11 partition and reinstalled Windows 11 Pro, opting for a local account again.

I’ve been slow-walking my B side setup since the clean install.  I got my go-to utilities installed using the Admin account.  I wanted those ready for whatever might befall my A side.

bbearren wrote:

I will create a standard user account that I will be using routinely on this side, just as I do on the A side. I’m still using the Admin account for getting things installed and moved around to my preferred places.

Today I rebooted to the Standard user account on the B side, and first checked to see if Edge had been re-installed.  It had been, so I uninstalled it with Revo Uninstaller Pro.

Next, I decided to see what’s up with my Windows Recovery Environment, fully expecting Microsoft to have installed the RE in the usual hidden partition right behind the OS partition, which would mean I have some work to do.  I opened Disk Management to confirm this assumption, but was quite surprised to see that there was no hidden RE partition.

I opened an elevated Command Prompt and ran reagentc /info and got this:

That’s where my Windows Recovery Environment has been for a few years, now, on a different partition on a separate physical drive from either OS.  I’ll explain why if anyone’s interested.

I’m still puzzling out how/why the clean install on a RAW partition found my “orphaned” Windows RE and skipped the default WinRE partition on the OS drive right behind the OS partition.  I’ve done a few repair/reinstalls (on both sides) through the years, and always had to go in behind and cleanup the unnecessary WinRE partition and reconfigure the location of my Windows Recovery Environment.  Not so on this clean install.  Curious.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

TechTango

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bbearren wrote:

going through two reboots in the process. Once I got to the desktop, I opened Services, disabled BitLocker and Windows Search (indexing), installed StartAllBack and Revo Uninstaller Pro. Next, I uninstalled Edge and Edge Update. There were some leftovers that needed a reboot to clean up, so I did.

That is what I am doing. I cleaned off the nvme and fresh installed 23H2 win11. I bought Revo Uninstaller Pro (the portable version) for 1yr(for now), and I have Startallback on. (I also have crystal disk stuff, FF, TBird, and a few others. But I played with Revo for a bit and can’t figure out how to uninstall Edge – I think it’s a Force option. Also want to get rid of copilot.

Tomorrow! nite!!!

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a wrote:

But I played with Revo for a bit and can’t figure out how to uninstall Edge – I think it’s a Force option.

Yes, you have to use Forced Uninstall to get rid of Edge.  Once you click that button, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.  It doesn’t take long at all.  Windows will sneak a reinstall back in, though.

I have a folder shortcut on my desktop named “Edge Check” that opens “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft”, which is where Edge is routinely installed.  I’ll check that a couple of times a week, and whenever Edge inevitably gets reinstalled, I’ll open Revo Uninstaller Pro and zap it again.  It only takes a couple of minutes.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

a

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bbearren wrote:

a wrote:

But I played with Revo for a bit and can’t figure out how to uninstall Edge – I think it’s a Force option.

Yes, you have to use Forced Uninstall to get rid of Edge.  Once you click that button, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.  It doesn’t take long at all.  Windows will sneak a reinstall back in, though.

I have a folder shortcut on my desktop named “Edge Check” that opens “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft”, which is where Edge is routinely installed.  I’ll check that a couple of times a week, and whenever Edge inevitably gets reinstalled, I’ll open Revo Uninstaller Pro and zap it again.  It only takes a couple of minutes.

THANKS!!! Yes I saw that yours snuck back in so I will finish my updates (WuMgr) and then remove it but your idea to check is super and easy. Should be fine. With Rufus this was a VERY easy install. Liking startallback – easy.

Edit: no prob w updates and no prob removing Edge. Thanks!

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