Start menu not working, nor search bar, jump lists, clock, etc

dalchina said:

- the backup disk for images is an external drive, preferably located remotely (like any backup). Putting your backup drive in your PC is an obvious risk...

"Recommended: Macrium Reflect (free/commercial) + boot disk/device + large enough external storage medium."

Point taken! Still not sure how I can do it though, as my other PC already has two drives, its main one, and the one that I use to back up my data, from where it gets backed up to the cloud).

How do you do it?

dalchina said:

I use a USB 2Tb drive.

Good idea, will look into that.

Thanks again. Backup still going on, so not had chance to reinstall yet. Will let you know how it goes.

OK, tried to do an upgrade repair install, but got a bit stuck, and could do with some advice.

I inserted the USB stick and restarted the PC. It came up with the dialog where you choose your language, and I clicked Next, then "Install now." I got a message saying "Setup is starting" accepted the licence, and then chose "Upgrade" (as opposed to "Custom" which said it wouldn't move my files, settings and applications). However, this gave a message that the computer started with the Windows installation media, and that I should remove this, restart the computer, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade.

However, if I do that, nothing happens when I insert the installation media. I can see the files on the USB stick, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to restart the upgrade.

I tried running the support\setup.exe file, which is what the autorun.inf file uses, but if I added the "x64" command line option (as in that file), I got an error saying the parameter was invalid. If I run it without the parameter, when I try to upgrade, it says that the upgrade path is not supported. Please close Setup and relaunch from the root of the media (doesn't say how I am supposed to do this) or go back and pick a different installation choice.

The only other choice is "Custom" which, as I mentioned above, claims that it won't move the files, settings and applications.

Any ideas? Thanks again

Just a quick follow-up. On a whim, I decided to mount the .iso file directly, instead of using the USB stick, and I found that the file structure was different from what I saw on the USB. There was a setup.exe in the root (unlike on the USB), and clicking that took me through steps that looked like the ons described here.

However, when it got to the step where you choose what to keep, only the "Nothing" option was enabled, and at the bottom of the window, it said that I can't keep my settings, files and apps because my current version of Windows might be installed in an unsupported directory.

No idea why it thinks that, as I did a standard install, didn't attempt to change the directory, and have Windows installed in C:\Windows

Any ideas? I seem to be so close, and yet so far.

Please see my follow-up post

dalchina said:

Ok, the message about not keeping stuff is because some system folder path has been changed and is not where Windows expects it to be.

Any idea how I would find out what? As I said, I did a normal installation, and didn't change the directory from C:\Windows

dalchina said:

Not that one, but e.g. the program path where programs are installed, perhaps if you have used the Location tab to relocate folders...

Nope, didn't change anything. I was a good boy, and let Microsoft decide where to put everything :)

dalchina said:

Beyond that I can only suggest you find the relevant logs and see what has been recorded.

Do you mean the upgrade logs? Any idea where I would find them? If not, which logs did you mean (and where would I find them)?

I'm getting this sinking feeling, and wondering if I'm going to have to scrub the disk and start again. I've wasted three days already on this, and I could have started again in that time. No idea what went wrong or how, but I'm pretty miffed at this whole thing.

Thanks again for all the help.