How To Repair Windows 7 Without Losing Programs

How you avoid the nuclear option.

Resetting Windows 10

Before y'all surrender and reinstall Windows, try to repair Windows 10 without losing programs.

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

If your copy of Windows is interim up in some fashion, there are a number of things worth trying before resorting to that extreme measure.

TL;DR:

Back up start, and so endeavor:

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

When all else fails, a complete wipe and reinstall might be your only option.

0. Back Upwards

Information technology's Footstep Zero of whatsoever process, particularly when nosotros're virtually to run some tools with the potential to brand major changes to your organization.

Accept a consummate paradigm backup of your system before starting time. There are two reasons:

You lot can recover your data from this, should you elect to continue beyond Footstep Five and reformat and reinstall anyway.
No matter what breaks in any of the following steps, y'all tin can always restore to this backup image and exist no worse off than you were to begin with.

Backups are your safety internet. Take 1 earlier proceeding.

ane. Run disk cleanup

Information technology may seem a niggling odd to commencement with disk cleanup, since on the surface it doesn't attempt to repair annihilation — it just gets rid of unnecessary junk and files no longer needed.

Depending on what yous're experiencing, it'southward not uncommon for all that junk to contribute to the problem. Browser caches, temporary folders full of old files, and more can all bear on your organisation.

There'south an additional motive for doing this, however: disk space. Some of the steps we'll perform next may require, or at least work more efficiently, with the extra disk infinite a good cleaning can provide.

Using Windows Disk Cleanup will show you how.

two. Run or set Windows Update

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

Checking for Updates

Visit the Settings app, click on Updates & Security, and click on Cheque for Updates to allow Windows Update do its matter.

Of course, sometimes rather than being the solution, Windows Update is the trouble, if information technology'due south not working for some reason. The side by side step in that instance is to attempt to prepare information technology. How Do I Fix Windows Update? has the instructions.

three. Run the Arrangement File Checker

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

SFC /scannow

followed by the Enter cardinal.

The Organisation File Checker checks for damaged or missing organization files and repairs the bug information technology finds if it tin can.

In that location's more on SFC in What Is the System File Checker, and How Practise I Run It?

four. Run DISM

The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) command is 1 I've not spent much time with, but particularly if SFC doesn't resolve your event, it's the next tool in our arsenal.

Once more, in that authoritative Command Prompt or PowerShell, enter:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Epitome /RestoreHealth

followed by the Enter cardinal.

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

DISM checks a number of things above and across the file integrity SFC checked for us.

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

five. Perform a refresh install

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

The approach is to pretend you're upgrading your auto from a prior version of Windows. The upgrade tool doesn't observe (or perhaps care) that it's "updating" to the same version of Windows that'due south currently installed. It goes through all the motions anyway, refreshing the unabridged Windows installation.

The downside to a refresh, also the fact that it takes meaning fourth dimension, is that configuration settings are often lost. I tin't even tell yous which, since exactly what is afflicted and how seems to change from version to version.

I demonstrate performing a refresh install in Refreshing Windows 10 Without a Re-install or Reset.

6. Surrender

All of the steps above are intended to preserve what you currently accept on your machine. Your installed programs, your information, and (well-nigh) of your configuration settings should survive everything we've done so far.

If zippo's helped to resolve whatsoever result you are experiencing, it might exist time to bite the bullet and reformat and reinstall. Then you'll demand to reinstall all your applications (or at least the ones y'all apply) and restore your data from the backup you started with, or elsewhere.

It's harsh and it'south painful, simply sometimes it really is the most efficient and constructive way to bring Windows 10 to a truly clean country. How Do I Reformat and Reinstall Windows? will walk you through it.

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