Users of Windows 11 are experiencing installation problems while attempting to upgrade the OS, with an uninformative error message providing no insight into the reason of the apparent problem – despite the fact that Microsoft is ‘closely monitoring’ the situation.
When trying to upgrade, some people are getting the error number 0xc1900101, and the operating system subsequently rolls back to the previous release, according to Windows Latest.
There is no more information on the reason of the issue supplied.
This appears to be occurring largely with Windows 11 preview releases, according to Windows Latest, and while other error codes have been spotted as well, the aforementioned one is the most regularly seen and reported on Microsoft’s Feedback Hub.
“All my real PCs updated OK,” one user said on the Hub, “but on a virtual machine running Hyper-V, VMWare, or VirtualBox, it almost completes the upgrade before rolling back.” Worse, the virtual machine software on VMWare and VirtualBox fails at the completion of the upgrade.”
“My difficulty is the same as yours,” said another. When I originally updated the computer to the most recent build, it gave me an issue concerning my graphics driver, so I had to roll back.
I suspected that the Windows update had corrupted my graphics driver because my graphics card was not working after rolling back; it only worked when I reinstalled the driver. Later, I reinstalled the update and it was successful.”
Microsoft has verified that it is aware of the problem, which it characterizes as a “generic” failure that it is actively monitoring.
“Thanks for taking the time to report this — error number 0xc1900101 is a generic error reported when an upgrade fails and rolls back for whatever reason,” Microsoft instructed one impacted customer.
This is an issue we keep an eye on, and the root causes might vary depending on whatever build you were trying to upgrade to and your configuration.”
There was no specific guidance offered as to how to get past this gremlin in the works, however Microsoft did suggest that consumers consider upgrading to the most recent preview release (if they were attempting to upgrade to a previous version, of course).
To read our blog on “How to install Windows 11 from USB,” click here.
