On May 8, 2018 a new Windows 10 update (KB4103721 - 2018-05 cummulative update for Windows 10 version 1803) arrived to my laptop. I installed this update and on a prompted restart of my laptop I rebooted to a black screen with a small solid blue spinning circle that could move with my mouse movements. I let this continue for two hours. (on a later attempt I let it go for six hours with any change to the black screen).
The only way I could (thankfully) recover from this black screen was to go to the HP repair screen by turning the laptop on and off a number of times and then doing a system restore to the state right before the update. BTW, this was the first time I ever did this and I noted that on the first reboot after system restore it went to that same black screen, but on a second reboot the laptop started properly. I also did a "scan for affected programs" while in the restore menu and "Dropbox 49.4.68" was the only identified program - not sure if that means anything.
Well, I'm back to seemingly normal at this time, but the laptop is still showing the KB4103721 critical update ready to be installed on restart. Thinking maybe something just went wrong with the first update, I restarted the laptop, installing this new update, but I get the same black screen and small blue spinning circle. I repeated the steps to restore the laptop to a working condition and that is how I am able to post this message now.
Please help me with what I should do. Is this a problem with the HP laptop specifically, the Windows 10 update, or conflicts with software I might have installed? I need to get future Windows 10 updates, but cannot even restart my laptop as it will return me to that black screen where I cannot do anything. What to do?
My details:
computer: HP Envy Touchsmart 17 (m7-j020dx)
OS: Windows 10 Home 64 bit
wired ethernet to Internet