Windows 10: Cleaning up the mess after upgrading and crashing a few times.

I do believe it was in this forum I received a bit of advice on how to stablize my computer a few months back. Well, it's all good now. Now I need to clean up the mess that's been left behind upgrading Windows 8.1 to 10 2-3 times having that crash, then thanks to everyone here figuring out it was IE 11's fault. Window's 10 has been humming along just fine for almost 3 months now with no crashes at all.

The Toshiba laptop that I've listed in my profile came with a "small" 500gig hd. It well over half full now, and I barely have any programs on it! I still have the Windows 10 upgrade ISO that I need advice on which is best to burn it off with. Then there's all the extra copies of Windows lurking on my computer. I feel rather stupid at the moment. The other day I was trying to find where VLC had installed it's files to. It then I noticed that I had Windows, Windows.old, and another name I don't remember at the moment. Basically, I need to clean all that up so I can set some proper restore points.

:)

 

Windows 10 11099 lost activation

I've been with Windows 10 beta/TP since the beginning. After going through the entire lifecycle of upgrades (up to 11099) along with the many problems/issues, my PC was to say the least very unstable and quite a mess. Thinking that a CLEAN install was the
way to go after quite a few upgrades/downgrade/re-upgrades, I installed a clean 11099 version. All went well until activation time.

My clean install won't activate and both online and phone support say that the product code I started with (supplied by MS at time of original Win10 download) has been blocked.

I know we (Insiders) were told we would be able to keep running/using our machines after Win10 went RTM. My question is, is there a way to activate this install or, is there somebody I could contact about it?

 

How to prevent the automatic Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Hi GregK

Yea, I spent 50++ hours last year cleaning up Windows update-mess... I spent ZERO hours on cleaning up after intruders, viruses, bogeyman etc. Okay I did spent a few minutes installing a few virus program as well on our handful computers.

 

First you could right click on the start logo, click on "run" type cleanmgr select the drive you want to clean up from the pop up. You can clean up any excess in the box, to see the big items click on view system files, that's where the windows.old is.

Rufus is very good at creating boot media, get it here Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

 

Before I download Rufus, I notice (briefly) that it makes bootable usb drives? I don't have the $$$ to buy a usb drive right now. I do recall from another issue I was having, someone mentioned I needed to use non re-writable dvd disks. A recent trip to Walgreens a week or so back, I was able to pick up 20 DVD+R's for $2. Can I use Rufus for this?

Sidebar, I noticed by doing a search of author by name of my own nic, I sorta asked this question a few times in different ways. I'm sorry I've been a bit annoying. Have a lot on my plate currently. I promise to follow through with this thread and get this iso burnt off!

 

I didn't catch that, I started using USB flash drives due to the ease of reusing them. Sorry jayv *Redface upon reading the Rufus download page it apparently doesn't have the capability of burning an iso to a cd.

The iso I've used is from Option 1 of this tutorial https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9...-download.html is a little over 4G. Had to use an 8G USB for the iso after I saved it on my computer. It's a little larger due to (I guess) it has both Home and Pro editions on that iso, you do have to choose whether x32 or x64 once you get to the page.

I created a folder "Windows 10 iso" in the downloads folder and saved it there, that way I've got it on hand. If the install fails (like it has several times on my desktop) I don't have to wait on a download to retry.

The people that created Rufus were kind enough to include a couple links to two applications that do have that capability. I'm sure there are others if you do a google search, but these were right there.

First one is CDBurnerXP CDBurnerXP: Free CD and DVD burning software their page says it can create an iso on a cd.

Second one is ImgBurn The Official ImgBurn Website Can't be sure if it can create an iso or just burn cd's.

 

I followed those same instructions on creating the iso. Since I had the 64bit version of Windows 8.1 home, that's what I ended up with in Windows 10. I'll look into those two programs you mentioned, never hurts to have a good back-up plan, right? I was just thinking though, shouldn't I be able to create a bootable dvd using built in features of Windows 10 and File Explorer?

Few other questions.... After I create the bootable .iso (I will no longer need to first re-install Windows 8.1), then create a restore point, if you were to create a second bootable dvd with various tools that would aid you in diagnosing or repairing a system, what would you include?

 

Check this thread from @Kyhi Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk

Sounds like what you're asking about, some very good tools put together in one place by Kyhi.