Windows 10: Corrupted Windows 10 on Surface Pro 3

I have a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10. It is running insider previews and this one is from July (so not the recent one that caused all the ruckus). Yesterday the computer randomly turned off and on restart I noticed that the CPU went to 100%, chrome wouldn't open (and later neither did IE), the start menu wouldn't auto clear after I clicked an option, and things like explorer, settings, even alt tab was not working. I've tried multiple repair tries that have done nothing, I cannot open the Settings Window at all, using a roundabout way I can open control panel or file explorer, through control panel can get to troubleshooting windows update but it hangs at "applying pending update." I've even tried SFC which returned nothing and dism which also hung at a certain percentage during the repair. I've created a windows 10 boot usb drive but I can't even open this as first it would hang at the desktop dimming UAC screen, after I went into safe mode and disabled UAC and then tried the setup file it said that it couldn't open and to try again after reboot.

I can't even get to the screen/option where it asks for a refresh/reset as that is under windows update which won't open. Is there any other way I can refresh or upgrade the current installation or fix whatever the root problem is? I feel like it's some core process which is wonky but I cannot open ANYTHING other than CMD, powershell, some control panel options. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

:)

 

Reset of Surface Pro with Windows 10 ends abnormally

Could you try download the recovery image then use that?

Surface Pro 3 official Windows 10 recovery image ready for download ...

https://pureinfotech.com/surface-pro-3-windows-...

 

Windows 10 Registration after installing Image...

Hi - thanks for your reply but that doesn't help much. The problem I have is that I need to activate Windows 10 on a new Surface Pro 3 after installing an image from my old Surface Pro 3. The box for the new Surface Pro 3 did not come with a product
key and I now have no way of activating Windows 10 on my new Surface Pro 3.

 

Hello ashwindec11, *Smile

You might see if this below may be able to help.

*Arrow Build 16288.1 - Recover a Surface Pro 3 - Microsoft Community

 

I did try that but my computer DOES boot just it's very messed up. All that fix does is get you to the login screen; doesn't do anything else. I can't access the Internet to add that other file from the computer.

Also my build is a bit older: 16237.
Is there a way to manually reinstall/replace core Windows files?

 

Are you able to boot from the Windows 10 installation USB?

*Arrow Boot from USB Drive on Windows 10 PC Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

If so, you should then be able to use advanced startup from there, and if needed reset or refresh Windows.

 

I can boot from USB but it says I can only do a clean install; to upgrade I have to do it after already logging in.

 

No option to refresh instead?

*Arrow Refresh Windows 10 Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

I think I got it working, mostly with a lot of luck. Somehow after a few sfc and dism attempts I was able to run the USB from the corrupted windows; however I couldn't run the stable windows 10 as I was running an insider preview, so I had to get the latest preview ISO and then put that on a usb and try to install that. Only thing was it would hang on the "your computer will restart in a few minutes." After a few attempts and letting it sit for over an hour I forced a hard shutdown and on reboot it started updating! So weird that nothing was working except ctrl shift escape and file explorer. Oh well I'll see if this solution lasts, but thanks for the help!

 

Great news. I hope it will remain stable for you now. *Party