How To Repair Win 10 Without Losing Data

How you avoid the nuclear choice.

Resetting Windows 10

Before you give up and reinstall Windows, try to repair Windows ten without losing programs.

The big gun to repairing a Windows 10 installation is to reformat and reinstall. The problem, of course, is that doing so erases everything on your hard drive, forcing you to reinstall your applications and restore your data from backups.

If your copy of Windows is acting up in some way, at that place are a number of things worth trying before resorting to that extreme measure.

TL;DR:

Back upwards first, then attempt:

Deejay cleanup
Windows Update (fixing it if needed)
System File Checker
DISM
A "refresh" install.

When all else fails, a consummate wipe and reinstall might be your only selection.

0. Back up

Information technology'south Step Zero of any process, peculiarly when nosotros're about to run some tools with the potential to make major changes to your system.

Take a consummate image backup of your arrangement before beginning. There are 2 reasons:

You can recover your information from this, should you elect to go along beyond Stride V and reformat and reinstall anyway.
No matter what breaks in any of the following steps, you can always restore to this fill-in image and be no worse off than you were to begin with.

Backups are your safety cyberspace. Accept one earlier proceeding.

1. Run disk cleanup

It may seem a little odd to start with disk cleanup, since on the surface it doesn't effort to repair anything — it just gets rid of unnecessary junk and files no longer needed.

Depending on what you lot're experiencing, information technology'due south not uncommon for all that junk to contribute to the problem. Browser caches, temporary folders full of sometime files, and more can all impact your system.

There'due south an additional motive for doing this, however: deejay space. Some of the steps we'll perform next may crave, or at to the lowest degree work more efficiently, with the extra disk infinite a proficient cleaning can provide.

Using Windows Deejay Cleanup will prove you how.

2. Run or prepare Windows Update

Many problems can be resolved by making sure that Windows is, itself, completely upwards to date.

Checking for Updates

Visit the Settings app, click on Updates & Security, and click on Cheque for Updates to permit Windows Update exercise its thing.

Of course, sometimes rather than existence the solution, Windows Update is the trouble, if it's not working for some reason. The adjacent step in that instance is to try to set it. How Do I Fix Windows Update? has the instructions.

3. Run the System File Checker

Run an administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell (right-click on the First card and click on the version that includes "(Admin)"). Then enter the following:

SFC /scannow

followed past the Enter primal.

The System File Checker checks for damaged or missing system files and repairs the problems information technology finds if it tin.

There's more on SFC in What Is the System File Checker, and How Do I Run It?

four. Run DISM

The Deployment Image Servicing and Direction (DISM) command is one I've not spent much time with, just especially if SFC doesn't resolve your issue, it'due south the next tool in our arsenal.

Once again, in that administrative Command Prompt or PowerShell, enter:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Paradigm /RestoreHealth

followed by the Enter key.

Results of a DISM run. (Click for larger image.)

DISM checks a number of things above and beyond the file integrity SFC checked for the states.

You tin read more about DISM, if you like, at Microsoft's documentation page: DISM – Deployment Image Servicing and Direction.

5. Perform a refresh install

A refresh install reinstalls Windows "on peak of" your existing Windows installation.

The approach is to pretend you're upgrading your machine from a prior version of Windows. The upgrade tool doesn't find (or perhaps care) that information technology'southward "updating" to the aforementioned version of Windows that'southward currently installed. It goes through all the motions anyway, refreshing the entire Windows installation.

The downside to a refresh, besides the fact that it takes significant time, is that configuration settings are often lost. I can't even tell you which, since exactly what is affected and how seems to change from version to version.

I demonstrate performing a refresh install in Refreshing Windows ten Without a Re-install or Reset.

vi. Give up

All of the steps above are intended to preserve what you currently have on your machine. Your installed programs, your data, and (most) of your configuration settings should survive everything nosotros've done so far.

If nothing's helped to resolve whatever upshot you are experiencing, it might be time to bite the bullet and reformat and reinstall. And so y'all'll need to reinstall all your applications (or at least the ones you utilize) and restore your data from the fill-in you started with, or elsewhere.

Information technology's harsh and information technology's painful, merely sometimes it really is the nearly efficient and effective way to bring Windows 10 to a truly clean land. How Do I Reformat and Reinstall Windows? will walk you through information technology.

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