Repair/Install question

Most of the time an in place upgrade repair with the identical version will fix problems related to the operating system.
Deeper problems with the registry may or may not get fixed.

Performing an in place upgrade repair where you upgrade the version in contrast fixes deeper problems (operating system and registry).

The latest Windows version is always a moving target as there are cumulative updates to fix problems.

The best option is to always have a backup image and that way you can protect important files.
Most ten forums users use Macrium:
Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything

If you cannot access the internet on the problematic computer you can make the iso on any computer and save it to a flash drive. It must be a bootable flash drive. So make sure the flash drive that you use has files that you no longer need as it will be formatted and make sure that it is at lease > 8 GB.

zbook said:

If you cannot access the internet on the problematic computer you can make the iso on any computer and save it to a flash drive. It must be a bootable flash drive. So make sure the flash drive that you use has files that you no longer need as it will be formatted and make sure that it is at lease > 8 GB.

Actually, in this case you don't need to make a bootable usb, you just need to get a copy of the ISO onto the machine that needs upgrading. Then you can mount the ISO as a virtual drive and run Setup to start the upgrade. The ISO may well be larger than the 4GB maximum file size limit of the Fat32 used on most USBs. It would need to formatted as ntfs or ExFAT first, but after that you'd only need to copy the ISO to the usb.

dalchina said:

A simple rule is that an in-place upgrade repair (or an upgrade/feature update) will fix many general Windows issues, but not those specific to a user profile.
A possible risk with upgrading to 1809 is that there could be changes in drivers which might have an unexpected effect. That can happen on any upgrade, but is relatively rare.

I only have one user profile on the problem computer. I started the download of the 1809 ISO before I saw anyone mention the possible driver issues so I may as well go that way and kill two birds (the upgrade to 1809 and my file I/O problem) with one stone. With any luck, I won't have a driver issue and all will be well at the end of this process.

If I do encounter a driver issue, I suppose I can just download an 1803 ISO and just "upgrade" (downgrade, really) to that....

dalchina said:

No, you can't go backwards like that. The way to protect yourself is to create a disk image of Windows partitions e.g. using Macrium Reflect (free) + large enough external storage for disk image sets.

Disk imaging and MR are recommended time and time again here. With a disk image, you can restore any imaged disks or partitions to a previous good state.

= if there's an problem with that profile, a in-place upgrade repair will almost certainly not correct it.

I was afraid you'd say that ;-)

If I have to wipe the machine and do a full reinstall of Windows and my apps, I'm prepared to do that too, however reluctantly.

I've seen the advice about making regular backups and I've made some attempts to do that but I always seem to run into a hitch of one kind or another. I mean to ask here about the issue but always seem to have so many things on the go that I never quite get around to it. Then, I have a problem and it's way too late to do that backup. Such is life, at least for me....