Windows 10: Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Brink, thanks for your efforts on this, it is appreciated!

 

See Shawn it pays to put in the effort since you end up getting flowers from all over! *Biggrin*Thumbs

(I think a good deal of us would probably get totally lost without those efforts for sure! Keep up the great work on guides!)

 

I'm just happy that they can help. *Smile

 

Well it bailed out the initial upgrade here fast when correcting a ton of apparently incompleted entries I think mostly related to the registry where running software installers even for the updated versions of the same ran into headaches!. And from what I have been noticing and not too surprised at hearing is most of the problems seen are upgrading from 7 to 10 compared to the amount for 8 or 8.1 due to the large number of changes that had to be seen in the newer registries.

Being three versions of Windows newer we could always expect some type of issue would come up. But this is how MS is offering a free copy of 10 by seeing to the upgrade over the previous. I have to ponder if there isn't some type of registry tweak that could end up seeing a better upgrade from 7? Or one other "something" besides simply disabling your av and other system protections as a possible root cause to look at.

Putting 7 in an almost Safe Mode or a Selective limited startup where you have only the minimum processes running sounds more like a possible help in that area. When looking back now at fast the upgrades were put on and then ran into problems this is one area of considering how to make the first upgrade go better where the last resort at first sight would be the need to see a repair install or plan on a clean install right away which takes away the option of reverting back to the previous version.

 

Love these OS specific Tuts across forums, saves me so much time! Thanks!

 

You're most welcome Dusty. *Smile

 

Here I have to explain things right as I am just learning them about 10 from not getting the chance earlier to work with the previous builds. The clean install was where I found the notation about unplugging any non OS drives which still applies to any type of upgrade install as far as things go with 10. But it was a guide just like this one only for 7 I went by when the initial upgrade ran into issues! So having guides like this around is almost a "must have" situation seen all too often!

 

Hi,

I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows 10.
If I follow this tutorial, and later wish to restore Windows 7 through restore feature Windows 10 offers 30 days from the day of the upgrade, will I be able to restore Windows 7?

 

Quick question, if I may. Since upgrading to 10 from 7, the Windows Backup has been a real pain for me. I've been getting a lot of error messages (all 0x800XXXX type messages). I looking at various articles on this site and others, I've tried some things such as setting the block level backup Engine to Auto and changing the login to my user account instead of the local account. I think I may have messed with this a bit too much. The computer seems to be running well enough, but I'm concerned I changed something I should not have.

So, of the 3 choices, which would be the best option to correct this, or do I even need to?

Thanks for any thoughts, and BTW, this is a great forum.

 

Hello Xyster, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

If you didn't delete the Windows.old folder from the upgrade of Windows 7 to Windows 10, then you should be able to if done within the 30 days of the upgrade.

I would recommend to use the free Macrium Reflect program to create a system image to be safe though.

 

Hello Gator, *Smile

It won't hurt anything to see if a repair install may help with the Windows Backup issues.

 

Hi Brink,

no the Windows.old folder is still present at this time.
So doing Repair Install of Windows 10 will not delete or change that folder in a way that later rollback to Windows 7 would be impossible?

I'm thinking about doing Repair Install because Windows Live Mail after upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 does no longer work (when I start it it just freezes and I have to kill it with Task Manager, although I see in background e-mails are retrieved by it from e-mail server). I tried reinstalling Windows Live Essentials, but it didn't help. Also tried to run it in Windows 7 compatibility mode mode and it also didn't help. Tried using sfc and dism utilities, but they reported everything is OK. So doing Repair Install of Windows 10 is my last chance I believe.
If it doesn't work, I will have to rollback to Windows 7, to be able to open Windows Live Mail and access my e-mails.

 

One thing I noticed here right off was no longer seeing the Windows Easy Transfer option previously seen with 7. Basically now you simply see the Back up and Restore options would be about the same as far as seeing your files restored following a clean install of Windows 10 even while that won't help for seeing a clean install of 7 or the previous version that had been on if unable to use the revert back option.

The DiskCleanup tool is the worst enemy for seeing that happen when it cleans off the Windows.old folder. The thing I can't figure out is why following a clean install after the initial upgrade saw the inplace repair take place I still see the "Backup and Restore (Windows 7) title in the Control Panel unless something from the upgrade installs got mixed with the subsequent clean install that took place? The drive wasn't wiped clean in between the installs there.

 

A repair install will not help with an installed program though. Usually, you'll need to reinstall the program instead. Did you completely uninstall the program first, then reinstalled?

 

Yes, I uninstalled the program, restarted computer, and then again installed it, and it didn't help.
I also tried renaming Windows Live Mail folder in AppData folder for the current user.
New folder was created, but program was still frozen.
Also tried to create new local Windows account, and starting Windows Live Mail under that account and it didn't help, same behaviour.