Windows 10: How long does reinstalling Windows 10 take?

So I managed to screw up my computer so bad the default image viewer and video player are missing and my taskbar and start button no longer work.

I decided to reinstall Windows using a USB. I downloaded the software and ran setup from the USB and followed all the instructions. It's been 5 hours now and all I have is a black screen with a cursor. My desktop has a 6th gen i5, 16 gigs of RAM, should it really be taking this long or did I do something wrong?

:)

 

Purchased Windows 10 on USB from Microsoft Store

Can the Windows 10 USB stick wear out if used too many times to reinstall or repair Windows 10? How long does the Windows 10 USB stick last before it fails? Does the drive get hot while plugged in? How does both 32-bit and 64-bit fit on a single USB
stick?

 

Windows store cache is damaged

How long does it take to reinstall?

 

Good morning, Bob!

Answer to first question....with no hitches, about 20-30 minutes.

From what you posted, you are not doing a clean install. You are in a Repair Install. Clicking and running Setup.exe assumes a working OS (apparently not so in your case). To do a clean install, you must BOOT from the thumb drive after it has been properly prepared. Here's the tutorial. Not hard, take your time and don't skip any steps.

If possible, make sure all you personal data is backed up and not connected in any way to the computer.

TC....

Clean Install Windows 10 Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

Thanks for the quick reply Tomcat.

Dang it... I knew I should have just followed the guide I was reading. That's what I get.

So do I just restart the computer or should I wait for it to go back to normal?

 

Unplug that thumb, power off, wait about 15 seconds, power on. That should get you back up far enough to make the bootable USB and carry on from there. If, not, use another machine if you have one, or a buddies to make it.

 

Alright, I'll go try it now. Thanks for the help!

 

In your case, the Media Creation Tool is probably your best choice. It will download what you need and make the thumb drive for you. Answer the questions carefully. You will get build 15063. Good luck, and let us know! Cheers! TC

 

Can take up to 40 minutes for me, it depends on how fast your HDD is.

One point to note when booting from the USB to do the clean install, after the first stage of copying the files from the USB the PC will reboot. You should remove the USB at this point, the next stage of setting up will be booting from the hard drive, you don't want to boot from the USB again or you'll go back to the beginning of the install process *Smile

 

Good point! I just do that naturally so it doesn't always occur to me to mention it.

There is a 10 second countdown at the top of the screen before reboot. After all the little green flags have been checked complete.

 

On my boxes, with SSD's install takes less than 20 minutes.