I'm currently using Ubuntu 16.04, and I recently wanted to install Windows 10 on my computer. To do this, I downloaded the Windows ISO and booted it to an USB stick.
I formated the partition that I was going to use and I started the installation.
But, at the end of the installation this message appears: "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."
Before coming here on Super User to ask, I searched on google, but none of the solutions presented worked. My secure boot is disabled and I also tried to do the msoobe while in the command prompt, but it returns me that msoobe does not exist, and I was at the right path (cd\windows\system32\oobe).
Thanks in advance, and forgive me for any english mistakes I made, english is not my native language.
12 Answers
Hi this question is a bit old, but I bumped in the same issue and sharing how it got solved might help others. If one looks for this error online, one will find solutions that didn't work for me, like:
- completely erasing the disk - I tried on a 2nd disk, did not help.
- disable UEFI and use the MBR instead: it would work, but it's a work-around, not a solution; and the Linux boot code would have to be manually changed to Grub1 (or do a reinstall).
- Use Shift+F10 to open a console and install manually the Win10 boot code. Doesn't work as it's not copied in the C: partition yet.
The previous answer said the UEFI partition was probably in read-only mode: that was not the case for me, the issue is the bcdboot tool installing the boot code needs some files from C:\Windows\System32... that were not there at all.
In my case the issue was an incompatibility between my motherboard's firmware (BIOS/EFI) and Win10. A previous upgrade from Win7 + a change from MBR to UEFI worked, not a fresh install.
==> The real fix was to update my motherboard's firmware. Then all was fine.
I was trying to install Windows 11 on my hard drive which had already an EFI partition - goal was trying to dual boot Windows 10 and Windows 11. The installer kept spitting out the error "Windows could not update Boot configuration" no matter what I did, and it tried to create a 100MB EFI partition.
Tried many different things but didn't work, but one did finally did after 4-5 hours of troubleshooting (I almost gave up but luckily I didn't!) - here's how I managed to get Win11 to install (likely same for Win10 too for similar situations). Before doing any of these, i suggest you google around how to export/backup your current BCD in case you accidentally muck things up:
- In Windows 10 (or other windows) - use BCDBoot. If your current windows is in c:\windows, type in CMD line (run as admin):
- BCDboot c:\windows
- then BCDboot e:\windows (where E:\ is the partition that you tried to install Windows earlier)
- then type bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes to display the boot menu
- then type bcdedit /enum to view your current bcd config, take note of your e:\ partition identifier - copy it to clipboard
- type bcdedit /set {identifierhere} description "My New OS"
then you're done
When you boot, choose "my new os" description (or whatever you set) and it will proceed to run the Windows setup and you can proceed from there.
Problem solved!
