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EDIT solved by installing the full, licensed version
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Hello everyone,
I'm trying to update my Windows 10 LTSB 2016 installation.
To do so I've downloaded the LTSC 2021 evaluation 64bit .iso directly from the Microsoft website.
Unfortunately the installation reaches a point where it's stuck in a "why did my PC restart" loop and despite connecting it to Internet (can't see why ethernet can't be customized, I had to use a notebook hotspot to succeed) as requested by the system, no further progress is being made.
Thought it could be a hardware issue - unlikely if you ask me, since regular, non-LTSC Windows Enterprise seems to install just fine - so I tried installing the LTSC version on a VMware virtual machine but unfortunately the exact same thing happens.
I'm fairly sure the .iso is ok since I checked its hash so I really have no idea what I can do now.
Any help would be appreciated.
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You cannot upgrade a Windows Server non-evaluation to an evaluation version. It is not supported as discussed here. From Standard you can only upgrade to Standard or Datacenter.
You mentioned a VM and this is where it is a little confusing. If you are trying to install eval fresh then that should work in a VM. However you cannot upgrade an existing standard edition to eval for the reasons given earlier.
Thanks @Michael Taylor for you reply.
I'm trying to upgrade a desktop installation though (Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB as it was called back then), not a Server one. And keeping files is not a strict requirement, so I can totally go for a clean installation.
Tried VM just because I wanted to quickly check a totally different environment, unfortunately that failed the exact same way.
Forgot to add the message appears during the "Just one moment" phase of the installation: system automatically resets and then shows the aforementioned "why did my PC" etc.
I don't believe you can switch editions even on the client. In fact I have heard (but not confirmed) that you cannot even upgrade an eval copy to a full copy anymore. The eval copies are time limited and cannot be "upgraded" by changing the product keys/licenses like you can from other editions. To upgrade you have to do an inplace upgrade to the full version.
But perhaps an IT Admin might be able to provide more clarification.
thanks again, I guess I need to talk to somebody in charge of our Windows license agreement and see if they can finally clarify whether we're actually entitled to later LTSC versions (quite sure we are) and most of all, provide a legit .iso for me to do further checks, as I'm definitely not willing to waste my time using any "unofficial" image downloaded from the internet.
For the record, the .iso I got from Microsoft (Enterprise 2021 LTSC 64bit) was taken from here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-10-enterprise
and if I'm getting it right, it should be possible to activate it.
But of course I can't say for sure so I'd prefer going a safer, proven route.
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I am trying a completely clean install of the latest eval build of LTSC and having the same problem, with or without internet; so, I suspect that the issue is not related to licensing or upgrading. I'm guessing a hardware / driver incompatibility of some sort.
THANKS, totally wizardized software! Sigh. I digress.
Previously running an LTSC build from 2019 without any headaches ( aside from the once-in-a-blue-moon missing feature ), but I installed that on hardware that was 5+ years older than the build when I installed it.
On very new hardware, the 2021 LTSC installation appeared to proceed normally until I hit this boot-loop issue.
My two cents.....hope it helps.
Yeah seeing the exact same issue in the virtualized environment feels VERY bad, ugh. As does the aforementioned lack of options for internet connectivity, this is something I definitely did not expect to see! And I'm quite sure this has nothing to do with licensing, too.
Hopefully I'll be able to report back soon.
Thanks!
If it is any consolation, then I also have issues with Win11 install (even the original version) related to network connectivity. In previous OS versions you could load a network driver from a USB driver if the setup couldn't find a workable driver on disk. They removed that ability because they changed how disk imaging works (for piracy reasons I assume). AFAIK you cannot use any network driver that isn't installed on disk by default (and my brand new computer that shipped with Win 11 Home doesn't have a driver on a vanilla Win11 install) without creating your own Win11 image and that is a lot harder now. There were quite a few posts online about how to get it to work and it just seemed way to complicated so I downloaded and installed the OS without network and then installed the driver after the OS was up and running.
Win11 took a serious step back in this regard. I hadn't seen this problem since W2K.
My institution was finally able to retrieve the original, full licensed version of Windows 10 Enterprise 2021 LTSC 64bit, I'm happy to confirm the issue present in the evaluation version doesn't show here.
Apparently I can't mark thread as solved with my own reply so I'll try to edit the first message head