Windows 10 Can't Boot After Installing Bootcamp Drivers

Loner T, thanks for your response.

I am aware that the 6.x BC driver's are the appropriate ones for my computer, I ran most of my tests using them. I only used the older 5.x driver's during one test to see if the result would be any different. However it resulted in exactly the same boot crash when starting Windows 10.

I'm not a huge Windows 10 fan, so I'd love to blame this on Windows too, but my tests just don't support that conclusion. I allowed Windows 10 to push it's updates during one test, and it was working fine up until I installed the BC drivers. I also installed the BC drivers before any updates were applied to a fresh Windows 10 installation, and the result was always the same. Windows could not boot up after restarting or shutting down.

My problem is different to the one you linked to in your response in the sense that that other person is able to boot into Windows and after using it for 3-4 minutes, he says that it crashes, where as Windows doesn't boot at all after installing the BC drivers in my case. His does seem like it's related to Windows 10 because he starts out with a working installation that includes the bootcamp drivers, and then Windows appears to push an update that breaks things.

In other words, there is no Windows update that breaks my installation, the only thing that causes it to not be able to boot up again is installing the BC Drivers.

Loner T, sorry for the long delay.

I think that Safe mode would still be able to work, but I didn't try that myself. As far as the exact Bootcamp version goes, it has a build number of 6136. The Bootcamp.xml version was 6.0.6136

I ended up taking my Mac to a Microsoft store, because I have one right by me where I live. The guy that's working on it for me was a former Genius Bar employee, so he had some pretty good cross platform experience. He seemed to indicate that compatibility problems like these between Bootcamp and Windows 10 are more common now than in the days of Windows 7 due to the constantly changing nature of Windows 10 (it could work fine for a long time and then receive an update that randomly breaks Windows on your device). He talked about possibly installing Windows 7 and then upgrading it to Windows 10. I'm not sure if that's the actual route he's taking, but I'll update this post with whatever I find out once they find a solution (if they are able to that is).

Well, as an update, the Microsoft store tech support team was not able to fix the problem in the end. They said that Windows 8.1 worked on my Mac (meaning that the BC drivers worked and didn't cause any issues). But as soon as they tried upgrading to Windows 10, the Windows installation was goners as soon as the next reboot took place.

So according to the Microsoft Store, Window 10 is incompatible with my version of the iMac 😟, even though according to Apple's official compatibility page, the iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013) should work with Windows 10 just fine. My solution for the time being is to simply run Windows 10 without the BootCamp Drivers. it's a little annoying having to deal with the function keys not working, but I plan on just using autohotkey to map the F11 and F12 keys to control the sound, and that will have to be good enough for now.

Yes, we actually did that in the Microsoft Store, and installing the keyboard driver by itself didn't break windows, but it also didn't do anything else either (the function keys still didn't work). I do plan on doing a couple more tests with installing individual drivers (like the one for just the mouse), but it's extremely time consuming doing these tests since it involved reinstalling Windows 10 each time it doesn't work, so I probably won't do too many more. I'll definitely let you know if any of my tests have positive results though.

ok, I'll try that, thanks

So I created that restore point and just had at it with trying individual drivers. Here's what happened

1. I was able to get the magic mouse to completely function as it should.
2. I got the sound to work without crashing windows first
3. Nothing else...

I also got the keyboard to technically work, if you count the function keys being recognized as function keys as the keyboard working. It was actually the opposite of helpful though, because they didn't actually do their function, and it made it so that they wouldn't even work as F keys unless I held down the function key. Not a big deal though, since all they're supposed to do is control the sound and brightness.

The only thing that I'd really like to get working is the brightness. No matter what I tried, I still couldn't adjust the brightness of the monitor/screen. I tried installing several different drivers for the display adapter, including the official one that Apple includes in the bootcamp software. I tried using the Microsoft Basic Adapter as some websites suggest, which just made the brightness button completely disappear, as opposed to just being greyed out.

Any suggestions?

I agree that everything points to a driver issue, but I've tried every driver that's at all likely.

My graphic card is the Intel Iris Pro 5200 integrated graphics. I've tried the driver that you can download from Intel's site on this page, which should be the right one, because mine is a fourth generation intel chipset. I've also tried the one included in the BC themselves, which is 10 versions older than the one on Intel's website. If I have Windows automatically find the right one, then it just grabs the same one as what I find on Intel's website. I also tried the basic driver that Windows provides, as I mentioned in my previous post.

So while the issue seems like a driver problem, I've already tried any relevant drivers for my chipset. Let me know if you have any other ideas though.

I did that and it worked! Everything is functioning as it should except that now windows won't let me create a restore point... Weird...

Also, the apple software update app wants to apply some updates, which could very well break the stuff that's working, I'll follow up if anything bad happens though.

Otherwise, thanks a bunch for suggesting that fix and watching this thread so closely!