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The computer manufacturer puts the recovery partition on to allow you to “fix” a broken system. It’s of no real value, but can’t easily be accessed unless you boot from an external drive / CD.

I looked at the partitioning with a partitioning program. There are two partitions. The first is a 40 MB fat16 partition labeled “Dell Utilities”. Undoubtedly the mfgs partition you mentioned. The second is almost 15 GB ntfs partition labeled “RECOVERY” (in all caps). Not sure whether the second one is for Win7 or 10 and whether it is necessary to include it with an image backup.

For Win10, mine is a usual strategy of having the image for general recovery. LRS is installed in Win10, but I also have a bootable disc in case the system won’t boot. I will also make a Recovery/Repair disc. I also do incremental back-ups.

I tried using the “on-board” imaging program, but it would not let me choose a sub-directory on my external drive to save the image (or I didn’t understand how to do it). Anyway, LRS is free for home use and it works great and is easy to use. It is based on WinPE.

Could the “RECOVERY” be there for the purpose of reverting back to Win7; an option available for a limited time? Any way to look into it to find out?

Wouldn’t you know it? Doesn’t it always happen? Just as soon as I posted my question it downloaded and installed a cumulative update and a couple of others. I won’t worry about the AU for a while. I may consider forcing it later if necessary.

I understand that what I have is a Digital Entitlement (currently known as Digital License). I’m not sure why it is necessary to have a different kind of license.

Thanks

Thanks for the advice. After the clean install attempt, Win10 would no longer boot and a couple of different repair method I selected did nothing. I used my image backup to restore what I had. I think I will just leave well enough alone. The Win7 remnants I have aren’t objectionable enough to waste more time on this.
Thanks again.

Calimanco,
Thanks for the tips and links. I’ve been suspicious of the driver managers anyway. Think I’ll avoid them unless I get into a real bind. I did read some stuff yesterday about the KLite Codec Pack, but wasn’t sure enough to pull the trigger on it. If I proceed with a clean install, I’ll certainly make use of that.

Man! I hate those big green download arrows. These days you’ve got to read the sites very carefully in order to find the correct download button.
Thanks again.

As you’ve updated from W7, you should check for updated drivers. Some of the old ones may not be compatible with W10.

I was able to fix the earphone problem by deleting the driver and letting Win10 re-install it during re-boot. I selected “update” for another and it came back with the message that the installed driver was the best one. So, Is it best to check drivers one by one or is one of the driver managers available on the internet a good tool.

Actually, I am tempted to do a clean install of Win 10 due largely to unneeded win7 remnants. However, if I understand what I’m reading, a clean install would lack dvd/cd play and read/write ability. I have it now because of it being a win7 remnant, I think.

That did the job. Thanks. Actually, there are two listings of it in the Task Manager. I disabled both; one wouldn’t do it. It is curious, however, that deleting it from the list of installed programs didn’t do it. Perhaps I need to find the executable file and delete those directories? I’m assuming that Win 10 doesn’t need it for anything. I just noticed that my ear phones don’t work. Maybe that is a separate issue.

I currently use GRUB which is a Linux thing. Probably all I need to do is copy the boot loader file and copy it back when the upgrade is done. I’ll have to check further. At least your comment tells me what to expect. Thanks

I can’t advise you on the rest of the problem, but usually, for pre-installed laptops, the product key is on a tag on the bottom of the laptop. It is a 25 digit alphanumeric broken into 5 groups of 5 characters. Hope this helps.

Sorry you had this problem, but I’m glad you were able to recover from it. I understand that KB…608 is a roll-up of several updates intended for WU repairs. If you aren’t having WU issues, I assume you don’t need it anyway. I’m not sure if KB…608 is or will be part of regular scheduled updates. Some one else in the know could maybe answer that.

Thanks for the link. I’m not sure that I read that thread, but it certainly verifies that KB3161608 is the fix, at least for some systems.
Thanks

Lugh,
Doesn’t upgrading to Win10 end your license to use Win7 on the same machine?

I have searched the internet and tried many if not all of the recommended Windows tools and “fixes” to get my Win7 installation to completely update. I was able to get the update roll-up to install, but none of the later updates would install automatically or manually. Out of frustration, I finally tried Wsusoffline and it seems to have worked installing 13 additional updates. I understand that it doesn’t install recommended or optional updates. So, I still have to work on those, but I assume that critical and security updates are up to date.

Thanks for the comments. I should have been a little more specific. Assuming everything is working properly and assuming that MS has updates ready to download, does the OS “see” these updates immediately upon connection or is there a period of searching and analysis? I can understand that the actual download and install process might take a while, but it seems to me that recognizing and notification should happen rather quickly.

Now that I have the convenience roll-up installed, I would still like to get an answer to my question regarding WsusOffline; does it install everything regardless of what is already installed, or will it read what is existing and install only those updates that are needed?
Thanks for the help.