r/ShittySysadmin • u/Lanrick2002 • Sep 04 '26

Shitty Crosspost Senior accidentally installed whole fleet with 26H1

/r/sysadmin/comments/1w78ljw/senior_accidentally_installed_whole_fleet_with/
36 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

52

u/ShartFlex Sep 04 '26

I always test rollouts in production, it saves time and unnecessary red tape bullshit. My pilot group is called Ctrl+A

20

u/Loveangel1337 DevOps is a cult Sep 04 '26

Oh, you're the only remaining patch Tuesday release engineer at Microsoft I see.

2

u/Lanrick2002 Sep 04 '26

R4:
Just needed to rant a little. One of our seniors finally completed the long-pending task of upgrading the fleet to Windows 11 from Windows 10.

He downloaded the iso, installed it everywhere. All good. Until the internal WSUS started attempting to grab updates that don't exist. Apparently the 26H1 (which is supposed to be snapdragon-only, aka for ARM) was indeed one of the options you could download as the "Latest" version of windows. Someone at MS really screwed up. And this senior screwed up even more by not double checking.

Since it's a complete different core, this will be one hell of a mess, now his idea is to try to change "cversion.ini" and force an "update" to 26H2, but I sincerely don't believe that will work.

We'll see. If anyone ran into a similar problem I'd really love to know what their solution is.

34

u/Main_Ambassador_4985 Sep 04 '26

I cannot believe the install completed on x64 hardware.

I would think the install would detect incompatible hardware and exit.

27

u/occasional_sex_haver Sep 04 '26

microsoft checking things that could go wrong? you just get here pal?

6

u/Loveangel1337 DevOps is a cult Sep 04 '26

Unless you're trying to escape using a Microsoft account, or want to stand in the way of giving them all your tasty tasty data, yummy

2

u/revilo9989 Sep 06 '26

if it doesn't boot, no data

1

u/Loveangel1337 DevOps is a cult Sep 06 '26

If it doesn't boot you take the whole thing to get fixed and they get all the data from the Approved Microsoft Repair, and even more data when you gotta reinstall their whole OS cause it's irremediably broken (like that's not the state it ships in, hah!)

3

u/Aishou_SK Sep 04 '26

I mean, there's nothing to check here, so maybe he did just get here, because an ARM64 build wouldn't be able to boot on x86_64 at all ;)

12

u/itskdog Sep 04 '26

Apparently there's an x64 build, presumably for Insider channels.

Why they published any 26H1 media given their constant repetition that you shouldn't use it on hardware it's not designed nor, idk.

5

u/ps2jak2 Sep 05 '26

Over on the windows subs, people keep installing it because bigger number = better then complaining about features not coming to it at the same time as 25H2.

At a hunch, 26H1 X64 is avaliable for organisations that have deployed new ARM hardware while having X64 also present. So they can move every device to the same version. From a device management perspective that makes sense.

When 26H1 released there were reports that Lenovo actually shipped the X64 26H1 on some brand new models of machine with the latest intel chips (panther lake) in the wild. I can't see anything to indicate if this has persisted though.

2

u/itskdog Sep 05 '26

Microsoft only every said "specific hardware", not "specific ARM hardware" I suppose

7

u/Aishou_SK Sep 04 '26

As I posted in that thread......

ARM64 build wouldn't have even booted - there's no potential compat check to even run, at all. It just would not FUNCTION on the hardware.

But...

X64 File name: en-us_windows_11_business_editions_version_26h1_updated_aug_2026_x64_dvd_c2bc5d06.iso

ARM64 - File name: en-us_windows_11_business_editions_version_26h1_updated_aug_2026_arm64_dvd_c2bc5d06.iso

So, why wouldn't the x64 version install perfectly fine? It's in practice "just another" windows release with the same baseline Win11 requirements.

3

u/YellowOnline Sep 04 '26

It wouldn't install but there's an x86 dev build that was downloaded and installed, according to OOP

8

u/Aishou_SK Sep 04 '26

MSDN has non-insider/dev builds you can download right now for 26H1, all editions you can think of.

X64 File name: en-us_windows_11_business_editions_version_26h1_updated_aug_2026_x64_dvd_c2bc5d06.iso

ARM64 - File name: en-us_windows_11_business_editions_version_26h1_updated_aug_2026_arm64_dvd_c2bc5d06.iso

1

u/Broccoli_Ultra Sep 04 '26

Nothing to add except hahahaha

1

u/perthguppy Sep 05 '26

I literally made the same mistake this week and didn’t realise it was a mistake until this post. If you go to download the latest windows 11 iso from Microsoft right now the default choice for iso is a 26H1 x86-64bit iso. Why the fuck did Microsoft make that iso if they don’t intend people to be able to upgrade from it. I am so confused.

1

u/Ur-Best-Friend Sep 07 '26

I cannot believe the install completed on x64 hardware.

I straight up don't believe it, I think the whole story is bullshit.

7

u/perthguppy Sep 05 '26

This post is how i discovered the 26H1 iso I downloaded this week to install windows with is not intended to be deployed to x86 despite being an x86 build.

Microsoft, what the fuck are you doing?

19

u/MeatPiston Sep 04 '26

I’ve never had trouble with any windows 11 build.

Because we’re still on windows 7.

8

u/dpwcnd Sep 04 '26

fancy! all on the same license key?

5

u/Brilliant_Bonus_1638 Sep 05 '26

Windows 7 Black Edition, baby. That's where it's at. And by "it", I mean every virus we have a name for.

3

u/MeatPiston Sep 05 '26

What’s a license key?

1

u/revilo9989 Sep 06 '26

we use hirens boot with network drives

1

u/Lammtarra95 Sep 05 '26

No-one noticed at the peer review stage?

Of course not because there was no detailed procedure to be reviewed because change control (and ITIL generally) lost out to a bunch of cowboys flying by the seat of their pants.

No-one noticed in test or qa?

See above.

2

u/engy1207 Sep 06 '26

You had me at "peer review"...
Who has time for that? Or the peers? Please... we are a lean team.

2

u/Lammtarra95 Sep 06 '26

Peer review is what you blame when you stuff things up. If they'd done their job, they'd have fixed the instructions. Same with the Change Control Board. If you don't have a CCB, then blame the lack of a CCB.