Reinstalling Windows 11

HDL · Aug 12, 2022

I am faced with is using the Windows Media Creation Tool to create an ISO file to reinstall Win 11. It says to run it choosing to keep personal files and apps. My question is, does this work as I think it is saying in that everything will be the same as far as my desktop and how I run my programs once this is finished running? I am totally unfamiliar with this process and more than a little leery of it.

NavyLCDR · Aug 12, 2022

What you are talking about doing is a repair install.

Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade

This tutorial will show you how to do a repair install of Windows 11 by performing an in-place upgrade without losing anything. If you need to repair or create a new recovery partition or having problems with the Windows 11 operating system on your PC, and the usual solutions will not fix it...

www.elevenforum.com

Yes, everything should be the same afterwards.

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

@HDL

You pretty much have two choices.

1. Clean install [Installs Windows from scratch - saves nothing]
2. In-Place Upgrade (Repair Install) [Installs Windows, giving you the option to retain installed programs and drivers]

My quickie guide to an In-Place upgrade...

Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Go here and get the Windows 11 ISO (use the 3rd option), and save the ISO to your desktop.
Download Windows 11
The ISO must be downloaded in the same language as you are using in Windows, to be able to keep your Programs and Files.

Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will "look" like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.

The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

HDL · Aug 12, 2022

Ghot said:
@HDL

You pretty much have two choices.

1. Clean install [Installs Windows from scratch - saves nothing]
2. In-Place Upgrade (Repair Install) [Installs Windows, giving you the option to retain installed programs and drivers]

My quickie guide to an In-Place upgrade...

Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Go here and get the Windows 11 ISO (use the 3rd option), and save the ISO to your desktop.
Download Windows 11
The ISO must be downloaded in the same language as you are using in Windows, to be able to keep your Programs and Files.

View attachment 36235

Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will "look" like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.

The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

Thank you. I am printing out these instructions to have once I get started. Before I do this please let me ask another question. I am doing this because I have tried every other suggestion I could find to make Windows Update install KB5016629. I ran this bat file in addition to 3 other suggestions:
SC config trustedinstaller start=auto

net stop bits

net stop wuauserv

net stop msiserver

net stop cryptsvc

net stop appidsvc

Ren %Systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old

Ren %Systemroot%\System32\catroot2 catroot2.old

regsvr32.exe /s atl.dll

regsvr32.exe /s urlmon.dll

regsvr32.exe /s mshtml.dll

netsh winsock reset

netsh winsock reset proxy

rundll32.exe pnpclean.dll,RunDLL_PnpClean /DRIVERS /MAXCLEAN

dism /Online /Cleanup-image /ScanHealth

dism /Online /Cleanup-image /CheckHealth

dism /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

dism /Online /Cleanup-image /StartComponentCleanup

Sfc /ScanNow

net start bits

net start wuauserv

net start msiserver

net start cryptsvc

net start appidsvc

Named it Wufix.bat
It will not install. When trying to install KB5016629 update I still get this message, Error 0x80073701 is ERROR_SXS_ASSEMBLY_MISSING; it means there are some system files are missing, which caused the update installation failure.

I tried running SFC / Scannow and it found no errors or anything to fix. So running this ISO is an attempt to replace any missing files the error message is referring to. My concern is since SFC found nothing to fix or replace, do you think running this ISO will do any good?

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

@HDL

There's a tutorial for resetting WU, too...

Reset Windows Update in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to completely reset Windows Update components and policies to default in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Windows Update keeps Windows 11 updated by automatically downloading and installing the latest updates, drivers, and hotfixes released by Microsoft. Sometimes you...

www.elevenforum.com

There's a tutorial for... everything.

Back in the Windows 7 day, I had a couple sxs files missing.
After days of messing around... I just reinstalled Windows 7.

I learned. NEVER delete sxs files. LOL
I was just trying to do a clean install of Firefox. So after uninstalling... I searched C: for "mozilla", and there were a few Mozilla files in the winsxs folder. So I deleted them too. Was a seriously bad move. LOL

HDL · Aug 12, 2022

Ghot said:
Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT

I have the ISO file on my desktop but there is no MOUNT option when Right clicking on it. Please see attachment to see what I see when Right clicking on it. There also is no Rum As Administrator. So should I choose Open or close out of the right click screen and double click it to run it?

bobkn · Aug 12, 2022

That doesn't look much like what I see when I right click an ISO. Do you have some sort of start menu modifier installed?

You could try "open with", File Explorer. That should mount it.

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

@HDL

I don't know. Are you sure it's an ISO file?
Maybe NERO affected whether MOUNT shows on the right click menu?

This is on my Win 10 machine, but Win 11 should look the same...

Try what @bobkn said. Right click it and choose Open with... and choose File Explorer

Also... open Winzip from the Start menu... go to Preferences or Options...
and make sure that .iso is NOT associated with Winzip

It's been a while, but if I remember correctly... if a zip program is assocaited with the .iso file extension, you won't see MOUNT on the right click menu.

HDL · Aug 12, 2022

Yes it's an ISO file and yes I have Start 11 installed. I'll try opening it with File Explorer.

I just checked and my version of Windows 11 is 21H2. I see where 22H2 is in the works. Any idea why I wasn't offered version 22H1 or is there one? Also do you think I'd be able to install the next version without reinstalling Windows 11 now? Maybe that would fix my problem I'm having now without doing this reinstall.

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

HDL said:
Yes it's an ISO file and yes I have Start 11 installed. I'll try opening it with File Explorer.

I just checked and my version of Windows 11 is 21H2. I see where 22H2 is in the works. Any idea why I wasn't offered version 22H1 or is there one? Also do you think I'd be able to install the next version without reinstalling Windows 11 now? Maybe that would fix my problem I'm having now without doing this reinstall.

There is no 22H1, that's why you don't see it.
21H2 is the newest version on the non-Insider channel.

On a side note: You should probably get rid of NERO and use a program like AnyBurn.
It'll do all the same stuff without all the bloat.

The Official AnyBurn Website

AnyBurn is a light weight but professional free CD / DVD / Blu-ray burning software

anyburn.com

The last creature on Earth that used NERO was the dodo bird. And they went extinct.

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

@HDL

Here's my Windows 11 right click menu of an ISO image...

It's been a while, but if I remember correctly... if a zip program is assocaited with the .iso file extension, you won't see MOUNT on the right click menu.

In the Taskbar search box, type: default and at the top left choose: Default Apps
Then scroll to the bottom and choose: "Choose defaults by file type"

Scroll down to .iso and pick... Windows Explorer...

Then when you right click an ISO file, you should see... MOUNT

TM21 · Aug 12, 2022

I'm sorry, but I don't get why some will say that when you do a clean re-install of an OS, you loose everything.??? That's just not right!!!
I've done re-installs on every OS since '98 and never lost one document, picture or joke.
Ever hear of "BACKUP"? If ya just back up your stuff, you won't loose it!

I wanted to try Win-11, just for kicks, but some time back when I tried to install it on my 7 yr old PC, I got an error message telling me that my PC was not compatible with Windows 11. Cheech! Arggg! and OH CRAP!

Well, yesterday I ran into a new and improved version of Win-11/Pro/64 (21H2) floating around on the WWW, and I downloaded it, burned it to a Flash Drive using "Rufus" and booted up my PC with the Flash Drive and installed Win-11 to a spare 120GB SSD. LO and Behold, I got NO error messages about incompatibility, and the install went off as easy as any I've ever done. And I was able to install the OS with NO MS Account, and NO password. Did MS decide to Lighten Up on their restrictions?

It was a real POS, till I finally figured out how to install the "Classic Shell" and it was all downhill from there.
Hopefully, I'll never Have to Run Win-11, but if I did, I'm pretty sure I could make a Go of it.
I just pity the nube who gets it and has no idea what to do with it.

When it comes to Microsoft Operating Systems, I started off years go with DOS 2.0, and it's been a wild ride ever since.
For my own use, I've pretty well settled on Windows 8.1/Pro/64. It's a real sweet OS.

Cheers mates, and thanks for listening to the rant of an old, retired, Computer Tech.

TM

HDL · Aug 12, 2022

Ghot said:
In the Taskbar search box, type: default and at the top left choose: Default Apps
Then scroll to the bottom and choose: "Choose defaults by file type"

Scroll down to .iso and pick... Windows Explorer...

That produced MOUNT. Thank you very much.

Ghot · Aug 12, 2022

HDL said:
That produced MOUNT. Thank you very much.

Good job. Now you should be good to go.

HDL · Aug 13, 2022

Ghot said:
Good job. Now you should be good to go.

Here is the strange thing about this. I downloaded the ISO file and it became associated with a Blu-Ray player I have installed called Leawo Blu-ray Player. Once I set its default association to Windows File Explorer the option of MOUNT was there. Not sure why this happened but I'm sure it is the correct ISO file. It is called Win_English_64v1.iso and it is 5.18 GB.

Ghot · Aug 13, 2022

HDL said:
Here is the strange thing about this. I downloaded the ISO file and it became associated with a Blu-Ray player I have installed called Leawo Blu-ray Player. Once I set its default association to Windows File Explorer the option of MOUNT was there. Not sure why this happened but I'm sure it is the correct ISO file. It is called Win_English_64v1.iso and it is 5.18 GB.

Yeah, that sounds like the correct ISO

HDL · Aug 13, 2022

Ghot said:
Yeah, that sounds like the correct ISO

I guess it just looked like an optical drive sooner than it was supposed to and it will probably look like it again once I do the MOUNT option. Thanks for all your help.

Ghot · Aug 13, 2022

HDL said:
I guess it just looked like an optical drive sooner than it was supposed to and it will probably look like it again once I do the MOUNT option. Thanks for all your help.

Good idea to "look" at the drives you normally have in ThisPC... then... MOUNT the ISO and look again.
You'll see an extra optical drive.

This is what it would look like on my comp....
Double click the item in the RED box (3rd pic), to see the items in the 4th pic.

HDL · Aug 13, 2022

Yep, I have it mounted and ready to go. Hope all goes well.

Ghot · Aug 13, 2022

HDL said:
Yep, I have it mounted and ready to go. Hope all goes well.

Everything should be fine.
If you get stuck anywhere, not knowing which choice to make... check the full tutorial linked in post #2 above.

Mostly, the choices will just be common sense.

Reinstalling Windows 11

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