Fixed: Windows 11 “What Needs Your Attention” | 3 Solutions

Causes of “What needs your attention” error

As shown above, this error often occurs when Windows 11 upgrade installation is at 35 percent or 85 percent. The causes of this error may be incompatible devices, drivers, games, programs, or waste files that need to be deleted when programs are uninstalling. Normally, the Windows 11 update tool needs to list all these reasons in this error window, but it will not do so.

Some known programs and devices that are incompatible with Windows 11 are listed below:

● TeamViewer
● VirtualBox
● VMware Player
● LDPlayer
● dnplayerext2 (A folder coming up with LDPlayer, but not deleted with it)
● BlueStacks
● NOX Player
● LinuxLive USB creator
● UxStyle

Solutions to Windows 11 update “What needs your attention” error

In this tutorial, 3 different solutions are provided to “What needs your attention” Windows 11 setup notification error.

• Solution 1: Uninstall known incompatible programs and devices
• Solution 2: Removing Virtualbox.exe file
• Solution 3: Find the incompatible file or program manually

☞ Preparation: Disconnect any non-essential external hardware like Bluetooth receivers of mouse and keyboards, external hard drives, printers, scanners, etc. on your computer.

Solution 1: Uninstall known incompatible programs and devices

If you have one of the known incompatible programs and devices listed above, such as VirtualBox, VMware Player, BlueStacks, LDPlayer, Nox Player, or TeamViewer, please uninstall them.

1. Type "Add or Remove Programs" on Start Menu. Then click on it.
2. Type the program's name in the Search box under Apps & features section. Here I take LDPlayer as an example. Click on the program's name, and then click Uninstall.

3. It might ask for confirmation. Confirm the uninstallation.

4. Go to the program's directory in Program Files and search for the program's directory. If the directory is there, delete it.

5. Then try to install again by clicking the Refresh button on Windows 11 Update window.

If the error persists, you need to manually find the incompatible programs and files with Windows 11 in your current Windows.

Solution 2: Removing Virtualbox.exe file

According to user feedback, the most common problem file is virtualbox.exe. Even if you don't have VirtualBox on your PC, most emulators (such as LDPlayer or different types of programs) may use this file in the background.

Learn how to uninstall the program and try to continue Windows 11 installation step by step.

1. Open This PC via File Explorer, type virtualbox.exe in the search box, then press Enter to start searching. It might take five to ten minutes.

2. The search results are shown below. Just focus on the .exe file marked in the image. I also used two red lines to underline the parent directory (dnplayerext2) of VirtualBox.exe.

3. Right-click on VirtualBox.exe, then click Open file location.

4. You'll see the original VirtualBox.exe in the first mark. The second mark shows the parent directory of it. Then click the "up arrow "icon and go up to the container directory. In our case, it is Program Files.

5. Find the parent directory and delete it manually.

Note✍: The parent directory and the program may differ. For example, it might be BlueStacks instead of dnplayerext.

6. Click the Refresh button on Windows 11 Update window and wait.

Solution 3: Find the incompatible file or program manually

If you are still stuck with Windows 11 "What needs your attention" error, you need to find the incompatible file or program manually.

1. Open Start Menu and type "File Explorer Options", then click on it in the search results.
2. Under View tab, find Hidden files and folders settings. Check the Show hidden files, folders, or drives option and click Apply.

Tip✍: Windows logs the incompatible programs and files in a hidden XML file, which is usually located in a different folder on the C:drive. Therefore, in order to find and view these files, we changed the hidden files and folder settings.

3. Open This PC via File Explorer, type *_APPRAISER_HumanReadable.xml in the search box, then press Enter to start searching. It might take five to ten minutes.

4. Windows Search might find multiple files. It is recommend checking all files one by one. After finding the problematic file or program, deleting it may fix “What needs your attention” error when upgrading to Windows 11.

5. Right-click on the first file, then select Open with -> VSCode. If you have Notepad++ or Notepad, you can also open these log files via these apps.
6. Press CTRL + F on your keyboard to open the search bar on your editor (Notepad, Notepad++ or VSCode).
7. Type DT_ANY_FMC_BlockingApplication Value="TRUE" and search. It means there is a problem with this file or program that the Value attribute is TRUE.
8. Scroll down a bit and try to find the LowerCaseLongPathUnexpanded property. You'll see the location of the problematic file or program in the Value attribute of this property. Something like that: %programfiles%\ldplayerbox\virtualbox.exe.

9. As can be seen from the above problematic file, the problematic program is LDPlayer. Uninstall this program and check manually whether all files of LDPlayer have been removed to make sure that everything is OK. If the file in question is another program, the operation is the same.

After removing the problematic programs and files, return to Windows 11 Update window and click Refresh.

Protect your files with best free Windows 11 backup software

From the above solutions, we can see that in some cases, we need to delete some files or programs to fix Window 11 "what needs attention" error. Therefore, it’s of great importance to backup computer before upgrading to Windows 11. At the meantime, you cannot predict what will happen to the computer during the upgrade. With a backup of your computer, you don’t need to worry about data loss.

Here, I highly recommend AOMEI Backupper Standard to you. It is a full-featured free backup software for Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP, which provides:

☪ Multiple backup selections: including system/file/disk/partition backup. You can use File Backup to quickly back up files to different storage spaces without taking up too much disk space. If you just want to backup your system, choose System backup.
☪ Three backup types: incremental/differentia /full backup. If you create a full backup every time, too much time and disk space will be wasted. This software provides you with incremental and differential backup functions to save target disk space.
☪ Various backup schedule settings: This software helps users continuously backup data so you will never miss any changes. You can choose Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Event triggers/USB plug in in schedule settings. The last two modes are available in higher editions.

As the best free backup software, AOMEI Backupper Standard can help you backup files in a simple and efficient way. Here I’ll show you how to back up your files to an external hard drive to prevent them from being damaged or lost. You just need to download and install this software on your computer.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Backupper, you will see the deep-blue interface, click File Backup under the Backup tab.

Step 2. Click Add File or Add Folder according to your needs. Choose the file or folder which you want to backup.

Step 3. Click the box under the arrow to select backup destination. You can backup files to NAS, to external hard drive, or other locations as long as it can be detected by Windows.

Step 4. (optional) You can click “Options”, “Schedule”, “Scheme” as per your needs in the lower left corner of this program.

◑ Options: You can comment, enable email notification, set compression level, create pre/post-command, etc.

◑ Schedule: You can schedule automatic file backup.

◑ Scheme: 3 backup schemes are supported. You can also enable automatic backup cleanup to delete old backups to free up disk space while keep the latest backup versions (available on AOMEI Backupper Professional at least).

Step 5. Confirm everything is ok and click Start Backup to backup files.

★ How to backup files to AOMEI Cloud

There is a growing trend to backup files to cloud storage. You can backup files to AOMEI Cloud if you have an AOMEI account. You'll get 1TB free storage for 15 days after you sign up for an AOMEI account.

Summary

That’s all for Windows 11 “What needs your attention” error. I believe you can solve this problem with the solutions provided on this page. Windows 11 is just available to the public a few days ago. Various problems may occur in the initial stage of use. You need a reliable third-party tool to protect your system and files. There is no doubt that AOMEI Backupper will be your best choice.

You can also use it to back up your Windows 10 operating system in advance. If you encounter the problem of Windows 11 go back to Windows 10 not working, it will be solved effortlessly with the Windows 10 system image. This powerful software also offers Clone, Sync, Restore features to meet all your needs. Try this best free Windows 11 backup software at once!