hi mikiem2. I installed the creators update on my surface pro 4 and my hp envy laptop today.

Very glad it worked! Thurrott I think mentioned in one of his articles or columns that he had a HP device that didn't get the last version via Windows Update until this year -- apparently it took Microsoft that long to feel safe that they had whatever problems ironed out.

The new version, 1703, does something different re: graphics drivers I think...

Starting with Insider builds *I think* around Feb, it took 2 or 3 VirtualBox updates to get 10 working right again; before that it had to use Microsoft drivers just to limp along. I was worried about my BeeBox -- a cheaper mini-PC using a Intel N3150 [CPU & GPU] I use for a HTPC -- but testing it with my Windows To Go drive it seemed fine, and 1703 installed without a hiccup, so the only problem I've got now is my tablet, where it looks Like Intel's Atom Z3700 Series CPUs May No Longer Be Supported

Marketed/classified as a Celeron, these are the low cost SOCs [System On a Chip] common in cheaper tablets, netbooks, and laptops -- when I looked yesterday it was in all of the lower cost Windows tablets on eBay. Intel has updated the drivers for similar newer, more expensive CPUs, but so far not this one. Intel walking away from the mobile market IMHO likely has something to do with their offering few alternatives.

These CPUs will *probably* continue to work on Windows 8, but the graphics drivers available for the built-in GPU are incompatible now with Windows 10 [and not just the new, Creators Update version]. I *suspect* that's at least part of the story behind some devices that have been unable to install the latest Windows 10 updates.

Everyone should create a System Restore point before updating.

You're right. I spent the time to get everything backed up, then made sure that each backup image was stored at least two places before I began. Then I tried to run my Windows To Go drive [with 1703 Enterprise] on each one. Then finally I used the files from the ISOs, running setup in Windows. I'm a bit risk adverse. :)

Everyone should create a System Restore point before updating.

hi mikiem2. I installed the creators update on my surface pro 4 and my hp envy laptop today. Everything seems to be running smoothly. I like the new email reader that comes with the creators edition. It can connect to all of my email accounts unlike the old one which kept saying they were using the wrong email protocol or something.

Still trying out ideas with my tablet... as it was, it was happily running 10 until the last 3 updates that appeared after March's Update Tuesday. One thing that bothers me is that restoring a backup from last summer, on the theory that something might have screwed up this copy of 10 recently, updates still won't install. Previously they installed through 3/8/17, and these updates were quite a bit older than that, so this might indicate some sort of change with Windows Update itself. It also bothers me that I'm not the only one complaining about those recent updates. Otherwise I've got the new version of 10 on just about everything -- finished the last VM today.

Things noticed so far...

System Restore might be turned off after updating. Some Windows IDs change after updating, so some software will deactivate. In one case Settings showed that Windows was not activated afterward -- there was a message saying to run the troubleshooter, which said to click the Upgrade button. That worked, though since it was Windows 10 Home upgrading to Windows 10 Home, there was no version upgrade(?). The one copy of 10 that I registered using a Windows 10 key often shows that it's not activated if I first go to Control Panel -> System -- when I go to Settings -> Updates -> Activation, however, it always shows activated, and if I then go to Control Panel -> System, all is well. On this PC the Creators Update did noticably change the boot files.

Running Disk Cleanup after the upgrade doesn't take as long, though I miss the efficiency of the old version of 10, where it would report giving me back TBs of disk space on a 200-300 GB partition -- I LIKE magic.

It's official -- this next version of 10 starts rolling out April 11. The roll-out of the last, current version was staggered over months -- even today not every Windows 10 device has it... Windows 10 sends back enough telemetry that Microsoft apparently knows when an upgrade installation failed/fails, & on what hardware, so they held back on sending the upgrade to devices with problem hardware until they fixed those issues.

It's expected that Microsoft will again stagger the roll-out of this new version, BUT, stung by the perception that they totally botched the last upgrade [as above, 6 months + & it's still not on every device], they're also expected to accelerate the process somehow. It doesn't appear that they've decided to address these compatibility problems by making Windows 10 better, by adding people to fix problems, or via customer support. They have changed the way the actual upgrade process works.

When you install this new version fresh, it'll still fail to install if there are too many hardware incompatibilities. If you upgrade however, it can still work by turning incompatible hardware features off, e.g. using Microsoft's very basic display driver, removing battery, touchscreen, SD card reader functions etc. IOW the device might technically still work, & the upgrade might technically have been a success, but the result may well be unusable.

[This seems to be a deliberate change from a month or two ago, when display driver problems 1st showed up in Insider builds -- at that time the upgrade process would try to use the current drivers, and if they didn't work, 10 would crash... you had to install fresh if you didn't want current drivers used.]

The odds of problems like this happening with the Creators Update have increased... graphics & CPU drivers that work fine in the current 1607 version may not work properly, or at all. Microsoft has also increased its driver signing requirements, so drivers that were written just a couple of years ago, & signed at that time, will often not be used -- you ***might*** be able to add them manually, clicking through warnings similar to what we saw in XP, but it's iffy... you might be able to successfully install the needed driver(s), but the core parts of Windows needed for whatever to work may be missing.

There is a chance that Microsoft could address hardware, or more specifically driver compatibility issues if too many suffer, but the majority of their development work is now going to be concentrated on the next upgrade this fall. After periods of relative hardware stability with XP, & then Windows 7, forced hardware upgrades to run current versions of Windows could be back, & even more so... because these are builds of 10 [vs. distinct versions], Microsoft can [& is] cutting support for older builds Much sooner, maybe only after 2 or 3 newer builds are released.

What you can do is test for compatibility problems before Windows 10 tries to upgrade builds via Windows Update, &/or before you try to upgrade yourself. You should at the least maintain a current image backup, because rolling back when an installation fails is not foolproof.

The latest Insider build is 15063, which is widely expected to be the same as the official Creators Update on 4/11, though there may be a cumulative update released at the same time [4/11] to include fixes Microsoft has added between then & now. Neowin[.]net had links to the downloadable 32 & 64 bit ISOs, with a link to the Enterprise version in the comments, posted yesterday, but I suspect that like the links to ISOs you get on the regular Insider download page, they expired at 24 hours [which is why I didn't include those links here]. Earlier this morning they were not yet available on that page, but they should be soon, maybe even later today. The new version of the Windows 10 Upgrade app should be available soon as well.
microsoft[.]com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewadvanced

The easiest way to test this new Windows 10 build IMHO is to put it on a USB drive, boot to it, & see how it works. The easiest way to get 10 on a USB drive is using the Windows To Go wizard in 10's Control Panel. If you don't have 10, it's easy to install VirtualBox [ virtualbox[.]org ] & add a Windows 10 VM -- follow the wizard to create a new VM, attaching a setup ISO. Then in 10, mount the Enterprise setup ISO, attach a USB drive, & run the Windows To Go Wizard, pointing it to the mounted ISO & the USB drive when asked. I've got my Windows To Go drive set up with this latest build, & I'm testing it on everything we have running 10.

If you've got 20-30 GB of disk space to spare, you can also install 10 to a bootable VHD -- it's been possible to boot to a VHD since Windows 7. The only advantage AFAIK is that you don't have the expense of a USB drive, though I've seen small drives like the Passport for as low as the $30 range on sale. Myself, I bought the cheapest SSD I could find on sale, sticking it in an external housing I also bought on sale, for around $30 total. It runs about as well [as fast] as 10 installed to the conventional hard drive.

This all said, if the new version of 10 won't run on whatever device, **maybe** the easiest way to avoid a forced upgrade is to add the portable key in the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

"PortableOperatingSystem"=dword:00000001