abrogard said:
I did a drag and drop and that worked. cut and paste wouldn't though. i got that error message " Error 0x80070522 a required privilege was not held by the client"

No idea what that privilege might be or how to fix it. Been getting that a few times since the screw up.
Yes, looks like that one is self-inflicted - cut and paste works for me.

anyway, the point is: what can I do about this situation? still looks like nothing but reinstall?
You could try an in-place repair install first. That would preserve your files and installed apps. Always best to make backups first, though.
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade