Windows 10 installation failed (in-place Upgrade/Repair)

Windows 10 Pro ver 22H2, MSI M=motherboard, i9, 128 GB RAM, NVMe boot disk.

** The issue is a Win10-to-Win10 in-place repair/upgrade that fails after what looks like a successful and lengthy process.

Background:  This is a new hardware system that started from an in-place upgrade from Win7 to Win10. 

The newly upgraded Win10 was a bit quirky, but worked out most of the bugs - mostly drivers, of course.

But still an odd hiccup, sooo, decided to do an in-place Win 10 Upgrade/Repair, but it fails.

Twice tried the in-place Upgrade with two different ISO's, one from the Media Creation Tool based on my system, and another multi-version ISO from an MS web page.

What is peculiar is that the install looks like it goes perfectly well - goes thru a 20+ minute process, first in Windows, then a blue DOS-ish screen, then back to Windows.  Then all of a sudden a little dialog that simply says "Windows 10 installation failed".  Dont bother suggesting  a clean install.  That is a sick and insane idea that people throw out there like they've said something smart.  Not smart.  And that is because not only does all the software have to be - reinstalled, but what about all the setups and tweaks one does as they curate and caress their software.   Many such tweaks on a mature system might be years old, so NO, not going thru have to figure all that out.  

Have tried all the tries - SFC, DISM (see note below), chkdsk, driver updates/uninstall-reinstall, virus scan, hardware stress tests.  

Another perhaps related peculiarity is that DISM /RestoreHealth fails with the "source files could not be found" error.  Also, DISM fails after it works for a really long time, usually on 62.3%, but then comes back with the "source" error.