Win10 1803 installation failure loop: bootres.dll is corrupt

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This appears to be a general 1803 bug, not associated with any specific cumulative update. From @Dougcuk: There is recurring issue reported online whe
[See the full post at: Win10 1803 installation failure loop: bootres.dll is corrupt]

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rc primak, Great Lake Bunyip

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? says:
hi Dougcuk,
i saw this fix on answers:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/unable-to-boot-computer-after-windows-10-1803/0ae0ebf6-4836-40ad-b1da-206c30028dd3
in the last comment from MD dated 08/11/2018 “…now it is working well.”

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Thanks – but as stated I was more interested in whether anyone had figured out what is causing this problem – as it seems to be affecting a reasonable number of Win10 systems judging by all the reports across the internet. And more specifically why the extra sub-folder “Custom” is appearing in the path – as I can find no changes in the BCD to explain why this location is being used.

I am beginning to suspect that the error message re a corrupted bootres.dll may not be the real root but more a symptom of some other issue. For starters the “Custom” folder does not exist and most likely never did exist – and even if you create the Custom folder and provide a known good bootres.dll file in that location nothing changes – system still fails to boot with same error listed in SrtTrail.txt. I think “Custom” may be a fallback location hard coded into the boot efi system if something fails – and is thus not pointing to the real fault.

I know that 1803 has or had issues with some SSD drives and also the VTx (Virtualisation) setting in the UEFI/BIOS on some systems – but neither seem to apply in my case.

I have already read more generic fix advice than I care to digest – but none addresses what actually causes this specific problem.

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? says:

Dougcuk, thank you for your reply. since I am loath to take on WinX (until it works more reliably) I can’t specifically answer why. I’m hoping someone with WinX experience on askwoody can satisfy your question with a comprehensive and complete resolution.

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I too am avoiding Win10 for my own computers – but have to deal with it for my business.
Despite Win10 having more built in repair options (great when they work) I find that it requires a complete Reset or Reinstall more often than any OS I have every worked on.

Still no real insight into what was wrong – but for one of the two laptops a System Restore from the RE console to a date just prior to the problem has restored normal bootup. Copies of the “bootres.dll” file on both the C: and EFI drives remain identical and have not been changed. Also I do not think System Restore includes any data from the hidden EFI system partition anyway. So the “corrupted” bootres.dll error message may, as suspected, be incorrect and just a symptom of some other underlying issue.

Anyone else every encountered this problem?
(Google shows 64 hits on the exact error text and 1000’s on bootres.dll corrupt windows 10)

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The main reason for my interest is not specifically my own case – but why so many others are reporting almost exactly the same issue – starting from just after 1803 was released and continuing until now. A Google search for [bootres.dll corrupted Windows 10 1803] gets over 81,000 hits – so this is a reasonably common problem.

The only fix I have so far is a System Restore. But most Win10 systems no longer create restore points – its disabled by default. Then you have a Reset – where you loose all your classic desktop applications or a full reinstall with all the work that entails. It would be really nice to surgically repair this “corrupt bootres.dll” issue without having to rebuild a fully configured Win10 system.

Checking back in my records I think I encountered a third case a couple of moths ago and ended up reinstalling Windows from scratch (no restore points) and the Reset wouldn’t complete.

Anyone have any insights – I have Google burnout from reading so many post.

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rc primak, Great Lake Bunyip

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Regarding relying on System Restore to roll back the damages, and not having any other option other than Reset or Reinstall:

This illustrates the value of having an image backup tool for each of your Windows 10 machines. My choice, Macrium Reflect Free, has a bootable WinPE 10 environment from which a rollback would most likely be possible. The System Image should be made before allowing any new Windows 10 updates, and you would then roll back to the last good image from before the trouble started. Then monitor future Windows Updates for any recurrence of the issue. If it is a general Version 1803 bug, at least these causes would be eliminated.

My point is, there is an intermediate recovery option between System Restore and a Reset or a full reinstall. Some folks seem to be forgetting about the value of regular system image backups these days for some reason. (And yes, it’s possible for a rollback from a system image archive to fail, but I find this is very uncommon.)

-- rc primak

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I fully agree with you – and have that option available for all my own computers. But when random customers bring you computers you have never seen before that is not going to be an option.

Which is where a surgical fix for this issue would be really helpful. The shotgun approach of using System Restore leaves us none the wiser as to what was actually damaged – it just sidesteps the problem by dumping a working set of files and registry over the top.

I provide first response support for maybe 50 Win10 PC’s (I’m the first person they call) – but have only seen this problem 3 times since April. If and when I get another case I will know to concentrate on the main Windows partition and not get side-tracked into trying to fix a non-existant boot partition fault.

Two of those three cases arrived from the same customer – after an SD camera card was plugged into each of them in turn. At first I assumed it must be a Virus/Malware attack gone wrong – but checks found nothing. So either this is a big co-incidence – or a major clue as to the trigger event that can cause this boot failure problem.

It may be that the use of a plugin storage device (an SD card in this case) is in fact a trigger event that leaves a misconfiguration that then manifests as a boot failure when you next restart that computer.

1 user thanked author for this post.

rc primak

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Maybe it’s time to educate your customers 😉 . But I agree that a real fix which addresses the exact underlying cause would be much better. I am not holding my breath waiting for Microsoft to supply such a fix.

-- rc primak

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Not sure why but a Google search today gives more a realistic number of hits for this problem.

Search for “efi\microsoft\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt” (with the quotes – for an exact match on the full error message string) gives 86 hits (26 most relavent shown initially) starting from April this year up to the present time.

The search I did a few days ago that got over 81,000 hits now returns a more sensible 1400 hits – that was for [ bootres.dll corrupted Windows 10 1803 ] (no quotes) again all the dated hits appear to start from the April release date for 1803.

I think these search results show this issue is more than just a random corruption with no common cause.

I think most have just re-installed Win10 thinking this issue is just a random corruption and never identified the actual cause – which I am suggesting is some kind of Microsoft Bug. Most cases report being totally unable to boot – but a few state that having run Startup Repair (which failed) they were able to “Continue to Windows” from the RE repair interface – only for the problem to happen again at the next Restart.

It may also be that if Win10’s “Fast Startup” is enabled this may bypasses the boot problem until you next do an actual full cold start (Restart or Shift-Shutdown). With Fast Startup active Windows is loading from a saved RAM image with all the system drivers and services already loaded (a more basic version of the Hibernate system).

3 users thanked author for this post.

Great Lake Bunyip, BobbyB, woody

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Well there goes the crazy idea I had of possibly trying to upgrade one of my 1709’s to 1803 this weekend.

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@zero2dash Me either why ruin a perfectly good 1709 OS with a walk on the Win10 1803 wild side? didnt even take a chance here threw it in a VHD with DISM why take a chance? and your not missing much anyhow its not a little patch grabber like 1709 in fact Junes updates just got presented last week it seems there’s something different about this one with Win UD, certainly is if the Bootres.dll is going “belly up”. At least you can work with it outside the OS with another OS in a Multi Boot.

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Just found an interesting statement by Andre Da Costa an MVP on the Microsoft Answers Forum.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/windows-10-update-keeps-rebooting/f3684ed8-4c88-47e1-b14b-7a702d6c4fa9

On May 23rd this year (2018) a Win10 user posted asking for assistance with this boot repair loop problem – and Andre Da Costa responded with this statement:

Unfortunately, you will have to perform a new install.
This appears to be a serious bug many are encountering with the new {1803?} version of Windows 10.
I am going to recommend you downgrade to Windows 10 1703.

Most likely this is just an opinion based on all the forum posts from unhappy users
It might be a tad drastic to suggest going back to 1703 (instead of 1709).
However even back at the end of May it was a known issue to some MVP’s

Here is a summary of this boot repair loop issue

1. Unbootable Win10 1803 after a Restart (or full Shutdown)
– which Startup Repair fails to fix.
2. The Startup Repair log (SrtTrail.txt) identifies a corrupt bootres.dll as the cause.
3. But uses a folder path that only exists on the hidden EFI partition
– and includes a mysterious extra sub-folder – named “Custom”
– plus an erroneous drive letter.
4. It appear the damage is located on the main Windows partition (C: drive)
– repairs targeting the EFI partition and the BCD do not work
– the only proven fix is a System Restore back to before the fault occurs.

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One possible major clue has begun to solidify over the past day.
Two of the three cases – that I have personally worked on – arrived from the same customer – after an SD camera card was plugged into each of them in turn. At first I assumed it must be a Virus/Malware attack gone wrong – but checks found nothing.

So either this is just a big coincidence – or a major clue as to a trigger event that CAN cause this boot failure problem. It may be that the use of a plugin storage device (an SD card in this case) is in fact a trigger event that leaves a misconfiguration that then manifests as a boot failure when you next restart that computer. There must be other factors involved – or many more people with 1803 would be seeing this issue – which clearly they are not.

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I’m not sure if this is potential evidence or just a coincidence
but another MVP (Trevor Seward) investigating this issue has pointed out that
a similar error (again with the odd “Custom” sub-folder) is logged even on fully working Win10 installs.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/bootresdll-issue-partially-preventing-boot/c3d6ad5b-2d5f-41d7-8fe9-ab2aff809a2c

The error is:
Windows system integrity policy does not allow to load the required system file
\Windows\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll with error status 0xC000000F.

The really odd thing is that this error is not included in the Event Viewer’s opening screen
– the “Overview and Summary” listing is supposed to include ALL logged Administrative Events
– but this red flagged “Error” doesn’t appear in this listing for some reason
– you have to drill down to the specific named log to find it.

———————————————————-
Open the Event Viewer (type Eventvwr.msc in the Run box)
– Expand the “Application and Services Logs” section
– Expand the “Microsoft” section
– Expand the “Windows” section
– Scroll down to the “Kernel-Boot” item
– Open “Kernel-Boot” and select the “Operational” log

There are normally about 13 entries for each Win10 cold Boot – all with the same date and timestamp.
All but one are normally just “Information” messages
But one message (may) show as a red “Error” message as follows:

Windows system integrity policy does not allow to load the required system file
\Windows\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll with error status 0xC000000F.
————————————————————

The full text part of the error message follows:

Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Boot/Operational
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Boot
Date: 19/07/2018 14:35:53
Event ID: 49
Task Category: (29)
Level: Error
Keywords:
User: SYSTEM
Computer: WIN-N2T1DK0FM0N
Description: Windows system integrity policy does not allow to load the required system file
\Windows\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll with error status 0xC000000F.

Win10 is well known for not having clean error logs – even on a new fresh install.
So maybe this is just another of the many incorrect registry entries that generate errors that do not appear to cause real life issues. But it is very odd that it closely parallels and error that occurs when Windows 10 is unable to boot.

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I hadn’t booted my Windows 10 machine for a couple of months.  There were both Microsoft updates (including 1803) and Dell updates available.  I installed the MS ones, then the Dell ones, then rebooted.  I’m now in the endless failed automatic repair loop, like so many others. With the same bootres.dll message in the SrtTrail.txt log file.

I’m waiting for Dell to ship me a Windows recovery USB key, and I hope that fixing the startup solves my problem.

In the meantime, I too would like to get to the bottom of how to directly fix this issue, rather than resorting to a full re-install (if nothing else works).  Happy to volunteer my machine and my time if anyone has any experiments you’d like me to try, with the goal of finding the fix.

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It is unclear from your post if you are currently able to access the “Advanced Repair Options” – that leads to the Recovery Environment (RE) – which is where the “Troubleshoot”, “Advanced Options” and “Startup Repair” icons are located.

My experience so far has been that the Recovery Environment (RE) option “Startup Repair” never repairs this problem. Also the fault doesn’t appear to be within the code on the boot partition – but lies somewhere on the main Windows partition. So attempting to repair the BCD boot files is pointless.

A simple registry restore doesn’t solve the boot problem – but using “System Restore” can “fix” the problem if you have a suitable restore point available – and the system restore completes. Running “System File Check” (SFC /scannow) usually finds no issues – and is unable to fix the boot failure. Running DISM to repair the component store is also not a solution.

From the RE Advanced Options menu you might have the option to “Go back to Previous Version” – assuming you only just “upgraded” from 1709 to 1803 – which may well fix the boot problem.

I have also tested 8 of the 9 options in the RE “Startup Settings” menu – the old F8 recovery menu options. In 1803 this is now hidden behind the link “See More Recovery Options”. I have not yet explored option 1 “Enable Debugging”.

“Startup Settings” is where the boot in “Safe Mode” options are now hidden, plus options to disable driver digital signature checks and disable early launch virus/malware drivers, enable boot logging. So far I can find no clues as to the cause of the boot failure using these options.

One odd thing to report – I was unable to boot into plain “Safe Mode” – but I was able to boot into both other Safe Mode options – “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” and “… with Networking”. Sometimes the “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” option succeeds because it doesn’t load the GUI interface – however the “with Networking” version does load the normal GUI. Very odd that plain “Safe Mode” fails – but the “… with Networking Support” variant works – this might be a clue but I have no idea what it means.

It would be interesting to know if you see the same odd behaviour from the three Safe Mode options.

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Thanks for the reply and suggestions, DougCuk!

It is unclear from your post if you are currently able to access the “Advanced Repair Options” – that leads to the Recovery Environment (RE) – which is where the “Troubleshoot”, “Advanced Options” and “Startup Repair” icons are located.

Yes, I can access the “Advanced Repair Options”.

My experience so far has been that the Recovery Environment (RE) option “Startup Repair” never repairs this problem. Also the fault doesn’t appear to be within the code on the boot partition – but lies somewhere on the main Windows partition. So attempting to repair the BCD boot files is pointless.

That’s been my experience too.  After “Attempting Repairs”, it concludes with “Startup Repair couldn’t repair your PC”.  The failure message refers to the “SrtTrail.txt” log file.

A simple registry restore doesn’t solve the boot problem – but using “System Restore” can “fix” the problem if you have a suitable restore point available – and the system restore completes. Running “System File Check” (SFC /scannow) usually finds no issues – and is unable to fix the boot failure. Running DISM to repair the component store is also not a solution.

I haven’t tried a “registry restore”.  It’s not an option in the “Advanced Repair Options”, and I don’t believe I have access to any tools to do this.

I haven’t tried “SFC / scannow”, but I have done a chkdsk, and it revealed no problems.

I haven’t tried DISM.

From the RE Advanced Options menu you might have   the option to “Go back to Previous Version” – assuming you only just “upgraded” from 1709 to 1803 – which may well fix the boot problem.

I did just “upgrade” fro 1709 to 1803.  But when I try to “Go back to Previous Version”, it reports that it is unable to do so, and suggests I reset my PC instead.

I have also tested 8 of the 9 options in the RE “Startup Settings” menu – the old F8 recovery menu options. In 1803 this is now hidden behind the link “See More Recovery Options”. I have not yet explored option 1 “Enable Debugging”.

“Startup Settings” is where the boot in “Safe Mode” options are now hidden, plus options to disable driver digital signature checks and disable early launch virus/malware drivers, enable boot logging. So far I can find no clues as to the cause of the boot failure using these options.

One odd thing to report – I was unable to boot into plain “Safe Mode” – but I was able to boot into both other Safe Mode options – “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” and “… with Networking”. Sometimes the “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” option succeeds because it doesn’t load the GUI interface – however the “with Networking” version does load the normal GUI. Very odd that plain “Safe Mode” fails – but the “… with Networking Support” variant works – this might be a clue but I have no idea what it means.

Interesting.  Previously, I had only tried “Enable Safe Mode with Networking”, but this failed to boot for me.  I just tried “Safe Mode”, and it failed to boot.  And ”

It would be interesting to know if you see the same odd behaviour from the three Safe Mode options.

No, as mentioned above, all three Safe Mode options result in the “Automatic Repair” loop.

I received the USB Windows 10 Recovery Media from Dell yesterday.  I will work with one of their support techs on the phone today.  So far, we’ve just been going through the very basic troubleshooting and recovery procedures.  I don’t hold great hope that these guys know what’s going on at all.  But, I’ll go through the motions in the hope a miracle happens.

Meanwhile, I’m still very open to trying anything.  It may require some patience with me.  I’m a long-time and experienced IT guy, but don’t have much Windows experience.  Of course, despite that experience, I managed to allow myself to get into a situation with no backup images, restore points, etc.  This machine wasn’t meant to become very important to me, but it did at some point, and it’s worth it to me to try and avoid having to “Reset this PC”.

Thanks!

Edit to remove HTML from copy/paste

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DougCuk, from your posts above, it sounds like you have fixed this problem?  How did you do it?  Here’s a post that looked intriguing, but I haven’t tried it yet:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/win-10-april-update-issue/32c0ff2f-f823-4346-8d75-22119515f961

About halfway down the page, a post by “Surveillance-NC” — first sentence “Hi guys ! Issue fixed !”

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Ok, I would HIGHLY suggest backing up your data on that disk before doing any modifications. Yes, you can’t boot into windows, but you can still backup your data.

1) You can take your hard drive out of the PC, and use a usb hard drive adapter (I’ve linked to one on Amazon, but there are plenty of them out there) . Apply the adapter, then hook it to another PC to download your profile (c:\users\yourname) and any other data.

2) Or you can use a Linux Live USB or CD to boot into a live linux environment (you can create one by downloading a Linux iso file, and use Rufus to burn it to USB, or just burn a CD/DVD). I suggest using Linux Mint or Linux Lite, as they are very familiar environments for Windows users. Once you’re in the Linux desktop, you can hook up a Flash drive or USB hard drive, and copy/paste your data over.

Now that your data is safe, you can try various things. The last thing you can try is a Windows 10 registry restore using the command prompt. If that does not work,  then I would do a fresh install of windows (not using the utility on your installed version, but by downloading this tool from Microsoft.)

Once that’s installed, then you can restore the data and re-install the programs you’ve used. Don’t forget to enable system restore points, and pick up a program like Macrium to create restore images. Good Luck!

 

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Hi johnf, great advise, thank you.

So I went ahead and followed the instructions I found in that post I mention just above:

• % DiskPart
• > Sel Vol 4 (my EFI boot volume)
• > Assign Letter=S
• > Exit
• % BCDBoot C:\windows /s S: /f UEFI

This actually worked!  My machine booted without entering the auto-repair loop.

But then I ran into a second problem during the boot sequence:  “The operating system couldn’t be loaded because the digital signature of a file couldn’t be verified.”  The file in question is “\windows\system32\DRIVERS\SEDFilter.sys”, and the error code is “0xc0000428”

Long story short, this DLL is part of the Dell Data Protection Security Tools, which has been end-of-lifed by Dell.  I couldn’t think of any reason to keep it around, so I removed it using the instructions on Dell’s web site:  https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln286129/how-to-uninstall-dell-data-protection-security-tools?lang=en

After a couple of software deinstalls and reboots, my machine now boots cleanly!

And, I have a good system image and restore point to help me out in any future situations.

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Great! I’m glad it worked (I’ve done this before, but only on Windows 7 devices. With Win 10 changing constantly, I was hesitant to post, which is why I mentioned doing good backups).

The Dell Data Protection tools DLL is interesting…I wonder if that caused the issue in the first place.  It’s a good reason to get rid of that type of software when it goes EOL, I guess!

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@Anonymous Yes I had seen the post by “Surveillance-NC” but that solution didn’t work for me – it was the first repair idea that I tried. Many of the “solutions” focus on repairing the EFI boot partition files – but in the cases I have worked on this never seemed to be the source of the boot failure.

In one case I could boot in Safe Mode with Networking or Command Prompt – so the EFI boot code appeared to be working and in another restoring a saved Restore Point worked – which doesn’t change the EFI Boot partition files – it must have fixed something on the Windows partition. In fact the only success I have had is either restoring a working System Restore Point or reinstalling Windows from scratch (Refresh didn’t work).

The “digital signature” issue is interesting – but using the Startup Settings option to ignore digital signature verification did not change anything on the fourth computer I have worked on.

I have seen 4 computers with the SrtTrail log showing the “bootres.dll is corrupt” message – the first was a Toshiba laptop, the second and third were HP laptops, only the last was a Dell desktop. But I do wonder if some issue with an early starting driver is behind the problem. Unfortunately the Startup Setting for boot logging shows nothing I can identify as a cause of the problem.

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Any updates on this issue? I am dreading any restart of my PC…

In the past I could fix it with a registry restore (using Tweaking.com’s Registry Backup) to go back one day.

But today the fix failed.

I then tried BCD fixes which did not help.

I then tried to restore a 1803 windows image (created with MS Windows 7 backup). But I kept getting BSOD during the restore.

I finally restored a 1709 True Image backup. This booted nicely until Windows update asked for a restart – got the boot loop again.

Now I manged to restore the 1803 Windows Backup image.

I am afraid to restart my PC. This is crazy.

I don’t have a 1703 backup image, because I never had that version on my PC. I would prefer not to install from scratch.

I don’t see that MS even acknowledges the problem officially.  So I don’t see a solution coming soon, at least not by design. Perhaps the infamous 1809 will fix this by chance?

I am grateful It only happens on my  home PC. If this would happen at work, all h*** will break out…

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I have no further insights as to what is causing this issue.

One question – when the “boot repair loop” occurred on the restored 1709 image did you establish that the error message was the same as the original error? (with SrtTrail.txt showing “Boot critical file …… boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt”) I have only ever seen one case reported of this error from 1709 – all others are from 1803.

If you have a working 1803 system I would suggest running as many checks and cleanup options as you can before installing any updates. The obvious ones are “sfc/scannow” & “Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth” – to try and ensure there are no corruptions that could trigger a re-occurrence of the boot failure.

Apart from having a valid Image Backup the only proven recovery option (short of Reset/Reinstall) is a successful System Restore. While I would never recommend relying on System Restore – if it happens to work it is usually the quickest and cleanest recovery option. If you have the disk space available (10-20GB) – I would activate System Restore as a “just in case” restore option. This would be in addition to an automated daily Registry Backup (Tweaking.com is my current fav) and an occasional Image Backup for unfixable issues (I prefer Acronis True Image via a boot DVD).

Using System Restore under Win10 does have one major issue – Microsoft have implemented an auto-delete of Restore Points that are more than 17 days old – as opposed to the 90 days that was the default for Win7. This usually results in just one or two Restore Points being available when a problem occurs. This 17 day auto-delete appears to be hard coded into the automatic Scheduled Task (using Srtasks.exe) and cannot be controlled by any registry settings. However tests show that if you disable the “System Restore” Scheduled Task the Restore Points do not get deleted at 17 days (50 days and counting so far!). New Restore points are still created during any Automatic Updates or the install of applications (if the installer requests a Restore Point) and you can also manually create Restore Points.

To disable the task open the Task Scheduler and go to Task Scheduler Library–>Microsoft–>Windows–>SystemRestore and disable the SR task. All you loose are any weekly Restore Points that might have been created – if nothing else triggers one for 7 days. In my experience Win10 still creates enough Restore Points even without the scheduled task.

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@DougCuk

Thanks for replying.

I believe I had the same error in 1709, but am not 100 sure. Too many things happened to my PC…

I was never able to use system restore to fix the boot loop. SR always failed with some error.

Are you sure this is a Windows problem and not the efi partition? What about the proposed fix  that uses Diskpart to format the efi partition and then create the efi directiory sturcture with BCDboot command. I have not tried this yet. Perhaps next time, before restoring from an image.

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It is entirely possible that several different causes all result in the same cryptic “Boot critical file …… boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt” message. I started this thread because I had read almost every support forum response on this issue and was no nearer understanding the cause of the problem.

All I can say is that in the 4 cases I worked on the location of the problem was not on the EFI partition. However a couple of reports had success by rebuilding the EFI partition which is where the BCD is located.

The most frustrating thing is that the error message makes no logical sense
“Boot critical file c:\efi\microsoft\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt.”
The drive letter and the path quoted do not match – that path doesn’t exist on the C: drive
The “custom” folder doesn’t exist – and creating it doesn’t fix anything
I could find no reason why the boot code is even looking for a “custom” folder
I have seen no cases where anyone found and fixed a corrupt bootres.dll file
So all round the error message seems to be useless in identifying the cause of the boot failure.

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And not a peep from Microsoft…

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I was trying to do an in-place repair install and after all the prep was done and the automatic reboot started, instead of a loop I was greeted with the Windows logo and a “Please Wait” message with no spinning dots and no disk activity. After about a minute and a half, it would go to a blank light-blue screen (no error message) and, after several hours of nothing, it would just shut down.

I would get the same result when I tried to launch most anything from the built-in Advanced Recovery Menu. I spent almost a week searching for fixes until I found this page and saw that I was getting all the same results as the OP. The Bootres.dll errors in my logs, the same useless results when attempting BCD repairs. Nothing was working. After another 10 hours of research and failed fixes, I finally figured it out.

I had 4 hard drives and an SSD that my image was booting from, all configured as GPT, so I had my BIOS configured as UEFI only. I didn’t have secure boot enabled, so I thought this couldn’t be a problem. But just as a last ditch experiment, I switched it to Legacy + UEFI and BOOM! That solved all my problems. Everything in the WRE worked and I was able to complete the repair install. I can keep it in exclusive UEFI mode for normal use, but if I need to perform any actions where windows has to boot into WinPE, I have to open it up to Legacy as well.

I know having my BIOS set to UEFI exclusive didn’t produce these symptoms a year ago, but I was reading another thread where the OP was describing the same problems, which he said started after he installed the Creators update. Which I’m guessing was when my issues started as well. He found a solution that involved doing a clean install from a pre-CU installation media just so that the standard 4 partitions would be created and configured: The Recovery, the EFI System, that mysterious third data one, and the Primary. Then he just restored his primary from a recent backup and that apparently fixed it for him.

So, if anyone else finds themselves in the same boat, here’s a couple things you can try.

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I have just resolved the issue on my PC by following the same advice as the poster above on the 10 Nov 2018, i.e. changed the BIOS setting from EFI to Legacy on my Gigabyte machine.

I’ve been running the 1803 version for many months without issue, but 2 days ago the PC locked up on shutdown, and from then on has shown the ‘corrupt bootres’ issue as you describe. None of the windows repair options worked of course, neither did restoring from a previous image.

I also have a bootable SSD and several other disks.

On the 27th (last day it worked) the PC installed several updates :

9WZDNCRFHWKN-MICROSOFT.WINDOWSSOUNDRECORDER
9WZDNCRFJ3PR-MICROSOFT.WINDOWSALARMS
9WZDNCRFJ3P2-MICROSOFT.ZUNEVIDEO
9NBLGGH5PNB1-Microsoft.OneConnect
9NBLGGH537C2-Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay

Not sure if any of that helps anyone else…

Edit to remove HTML. Please use the “Text” tab in the entry box when you copy/paste.

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Although, I spoke too soon as it wouldn’t boot a second time. 🙁
But, as it booted fine in Safe mode, but not in Safe mode with Networking, I tried disabling the 2 wifi devices and the ethernet device when in safe mode. Then rebooted and started normally and it started just fine. Obviously the network devices were disabled but they could be enabled without issue.. Now just have to wait for a real fix or keep disabling the network before I shutdown 🙁

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https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/win-10-april-update-issue/32c0ff2f-f823-4346-8d75-22119515f961

This procedure worked for me also

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Hi,

I got the same problem as you described, on an HP Probook 440 G5 laptop (Bitlocker enabled on the disk), tried EVERYTHING.

The only thing that worked for me was to disable “Secure Boot” in BIOS.

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Thanks for all the valuable inputs.

I had a pretty close issue here,

–  an ” e:\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt” entry in srttrail.txt,
– able to boot in safe mode with network,
– the kernel log entry described by DougCuk.
– and another blue screen “DRIVER VERIFIER DETECTED VIOLATION”

My issue was the boot device order in the Bios,  trying to boot on a HD with no filesystem.

I have no idea how this was changed and if something else is hidden there.
So far 6 sucessfull reboot.

Johny

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I just found your posts on this error. I had tried to solve another version 1803 problem by installing a different graphics card and that triggered this problem.

Here are my problems:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/loss-of-1920-x-1080-resolution-with-version1803/26a6c7c0-f1ec-4b6d-9380-a9e1c6fd7872?messageId=a5c48468-15e9-41fa-aaed-c239cf3e681c

I’ll try some of the fixes if I can get to a place to try them.  Any advice?

MF

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I tried all of the fixes. Since I couldn’t get to Safe Mode I couldn’t really try most of them. None of them worked. Luckily I had the good sense to create a restore point on an external drive back in July before I installed the “Creators Update” version 1803 (somehow I can’t imagine what the universe would be like if The Creator had worked for Microsoft).

Everything is working again under version 1709 and once the driver for my new graphics card was installed I have 1920 x 1080 resolution on my display.  I haven’t tried to go back to the VGA connection on the integrated Intel graphics adapter to see if I also have 1920 x 1080 as I did before version 1803. I don’t know if I should push my luck.

It sure would be nice if Microsoft would step up to the plate on this problem. It seems like it is pretty common and isn’t related to any particular platforms – even some which are still under warranty.

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Some additional info that may be helpful. I’ve been working with a customer who was seeing the Boot critical file c:\efi\microsoft\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt error.

My initial response was to rebuild the BCD but that didn’t resolve. In the end I did an in place re-install of Win 10 Pro to fix. After 3 occurrences we realised something else must be in play.

We tracked it down to an ixxat VCI driver but I reckon the cause could be any unsigned driver. Why this manifests as a BCD error I don’t know – certainly sent us in the wrong direction for diagnosing!

Our environment is Win 10 Pro in secure boot mode with bitlocker on the OS drives.

As soon as the unsigned driver was installed the next Windows reboot failed with the BCD error. Possibly booting into safe mode and activating “disable driver signature enforcement option” would have allowed us to boot into safe mode and uninstall the drivers but didn’t find that till later.

Hope this helps!

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Some have also suggested turning off secure boot though that didn’t work in our case.

 

https://forum.hms-networks.com/t/ixxat-vci-v3-driver-crashes-windows-10/1649/2

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I think it has become clear that the “bootres.dll is corrupt” error is not triggered by a specific single cause. Rather it is a catch all response to a range of boot failures that Windows fails to analyse correctly. The only common theme appears to be a failure to load a critical driver file – that then halts the boot sequence and triggers a restart – in many cases with no record of the actual failure in any boot logs. Occasionally an “unsigned driver” error has been reported as the cause – but in most cases this is not found.

In a very small number of cases rebuilding the BCD files has worked – but in all my research on this error I would estimate that this applies to less than 5% of solved cases. My understanding is that if you can boot to “Safe Mode” or “Safe Mode with Networking” it is very unlikely that the BCD is at fault.

Video drivers have been implicated in a significant percentage of the solved cases – but do not appear to be the only cause. One diagnostic trick that can be used is to swap the video hardware being used – which may allow the system to boot normally – and thus identify the potential cause. In several cases swapping from an addon card to onboard video or vice versa has worked (or to a different addon card using different driver files) – in some cases just changing the output port (DVI, HDMI, VGA) has also worked.

It would seem that instead of creating a generic error message for an undiagnosed boot failure Microsoft have allowed a specific (but incorrect) error message to be logged – which just wastes everyone’s time trying to solve a non-existent fault – that will never fix the boot failure.

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I have been encountering this with some new HP Elite SFF computers.
They have Intel Optane and HP Sure boot enabled. Coincidence or possibly related?

Anyone else corroborate the same scenario?

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hi @DougCuk et al,

I have hit this problem and am offering to try to help shed light on the issue.
I am (was) running windows 10 in a virtualbox virtual machine. I am in the fortunate situation that I can repeatedly revert back to nominally working virtual machine state to perform experiments.
I have been able to open a command prompt window and navigate to D:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt. I see the “Boot critical file d:\boot\resources\custom\bootres.dll is corrupt” message in SrtTrail.txt.

Stuff I believe to be true (but who knows):
– The virtual machine hung when I connected a USB device. The Device happened to be a STM32VLDiscovery board, but I have yet to establish whether the problem is unique to that device.
– it happens with both 5.2.26 and 5.2.28 VirtualBox Guest Additions
– it happened shortly after a big update to Windows 10

To reiterate, I have a set up where I believe that I can reliably create the problem. Please let me know if there is anything I can do with this setup to help identify the problem.

Cheers,
Richard

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more info….

With my Virtual Machine in a failed state, I was able to get to a command prompt. I copied bootres.dll and en-US from \Windows\Boot\Resources\ to a newly created \Windows\Boot\Resources\custom. The disk drive was D: but not sure it will be for everyone.

After doing this, I closed the cmd window and started Windows. It started.

I seem to be able to repeated close and restart this VM.

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I was able to resolve this on a Gigabyte Notebook on Windows 1803. I COULD, and often did, just reboot with a hard reboot from the failed loading screen when it took too long circling the drain, as it were, with a sustained power button press. But the error would return after next shutdown. I could also always bypass by “continue booting into Windows 10” after selecting repair options, but again it would return. I finally simply created the missing file in the missing specified folder, but took a hint from one of the posts here, and ignored the “custom” folder, and added the “Windows folder” creating a folder at:
C:\Windows\Boot\Resources

…and placing a copy of bootres.dll there. This took repeated tries, because I had to keep using a program to “take ownership” of the folder in this tree in order to accomplish each step. Finally succeeding, I rebooted and haven’t seen the problem since.

Very interesting to note, however, is that, once I managed to accomplish the above, WINDOWS itself seems to have then reproduced the file bootres.dll in the location specified in the error log, at:
C:\Windows\Boot\Resources\Custom
…although, once again, it added in the “Windows” folder, which is not specified in the error message in SrtTrail.txt

Hope that helps someone!

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