Should I try repair install again?

A little while back I carried out a repair install with the help of advice in this forum (in another thread). It cured a number of long-standing problems and restored some features I had been without for months. But it left or maybe even created a few, especially regarding the Store and Shutting down. As a result of following advice about using Powershell from the Windows Community I have now lost the Store completely. So I decided to get help from the MS Support Chat service which has sometimes been a big help. Alas, I have had a frustrating afternoon with three attempts to use Chat disconnecting part way through. Microsoft does not seem to have a way to deal with this, apart from going back to the beginning all over again.

During the last of the three sessions the tech was going to try a repair install and started downloading the Tool. It did not complete and yet again my PC was disconnected from the session. If something was downloaded I have not found it yet. So I am considering doing it myself, not least in the hope that it might repair the three or four faults I still have. I have found the files (s) I used before, on a flash drive ---- the main one being, I think, Win10_1703_English. Am I right that all I have to do is Mount that, ie. run it, and sit back?

The best bet is do a clean install that will remove all problems or do a upgrade install with that you won't loose data but it's not as effective as a clean install

I'm in The US so haven't seen that particular model. Going by experience on the Chinese Type Tablets I've worked on before I'd seriously recommend using doubledriver http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm to backup the drivers to a USB drive before attempting a clean install. *Lots of Touchpad and other driver Issues*

Seems like You have some problems with not a lot of unused space on the C: partition ?? If you could clean up enough to have the necessary space, I'd recommend just putting the ISO on the desktop, mounting it, then running setup as admin, "upgrading to the same OS" so You could keep Your files programs and settings. Not quite as "clean" as a fresh install but should solve the problems as posted above.

clayto said:

I have found the files (s) I used before, on a flash drive ---- the main one being, I think, Win10_1703_English. Am I right that all I have to do is Mount that, ie. run it, and sit back?

Yes - that is how you do repair install. Assuming you are on 1703 it will work fine - you can check your version by running winver command). If the files on the flash drive are too old it just will not work so nothing to worry about really.

Depending what you did though with powershell you could have corrupted your system files (in which case repair install will fix it) or your profile. Repair install will not fix your profile. In that case you could make another (admin) account and try that.

Add User Account in Windows 10 Windows 10 User Accounts Tutorials

If the new account is OK sign onto old account and move your documents to from C:\Users\Old_Account to C:\Users\Public. Then sign onto your new account and move them from C:\Users\Public to C:\Users\New_Account. Moving through C:\Users\Public stops any permissions issues.

Then you can delete old account and convert the new account into MS account if you want to - there are links in the tutorial above.

Alas, around half way through I get "Windows 10 installation has failed." It is only weeks since I did it successfully.so why not now? It worked smoothly before but my optimism has been dashed. No explanation is given. My preference is to get it to work, as it was easy and successful. What can I do now?

You can open the setuperr.log in notepad and have a look at the error codes and start googling them one by one. That's what I do.

Or you could upload setuperr.log and setupact.log to this site and perhaps someone else will see an obvious problem.

It was suggested my ISO might have got corrupted. I have another copy on my backup drive. Each time it also fails, often with a different 'excuse'. The latest, which comes towards the start, is "Windows failed to validate your product key." I thought product keys were old hat, as my key is stored digitally online? Anyway, can this be dealt with, before I try other suggestions?

If you don't say what the error is I can't imagine how anyone can help.

"Windows 10 installation has failed" or "fails, often with a different 'excuse'" really isn't enough to go on.

Provide the log files (or check them yourself).

Forget licensing though - upgrade errors and licensing errors are completely separate. You can deal with your activation before or after you upgrade - it doesn't matter. Upgrades never fail because of licensing.

I'm still trying to figure out if we are talking about continuing to do repair installs - or just wiping the hard drive or SSD and starting over from nothing. To me continuing to attempt to do repair installs is fruitless, it's pretty clear it isn't going to work.