Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade  

Many thanks Brink for this and other helpful tutorials need on the way.

Success ! With a lot of help. Recommending to friends and family,

re Step 19

Can I use Disk Cleanup to remove Windows Upgrade log files and Temporary Files without losing Windows old ?

This is the first tutorial including the facts, what I lose and what I have to redo:

• System Protection will be reset to the default of being turned off. It is recommended to turn on system protection after the repair install has finished to have restore points.
• You will lose any custom fonts.
• You will lose any customized system icons.
• You may need to re-establish your Wi-Fi connection.
• You will need to redo Windows updates subsequent to the build you have used for the repair install.
• Windows.old will be created.
• You will need to redo any language downloads including the display language if you changed that.

Thank you very much for this!

Is the procedure for doing an in-place Win 10 non-destructive repair still valid?
I am on 21h1 of win 10 Pro x64. I created this as a fresh install onto a new SSD. I found some bugs in 21h1, which I reported. Now 21h1 appears trashed. I couldn't install the Windows update kb5006670. That seems to have trashed the windows logs so I can't diagnose the error. It also seems to have trashed VSS, so I cannot do any backups, or even clone the system to a HDD.
It makes no sense for me to repeat the fresh install, so a non-destructive install is more attractive.
I still have the 21h1 install thumb-drive. Can I run setup.exe from it?
However:
This might still leave me with a buggy 21h1. My friend was on 1903 and windows update brought him up to 21h1 and he doesn't have the problems I had doing a clean 21h1 install. So, can I do a non-destructive install from my corrupted 21h1 to 1903? I still have my 1903 DVD,

mfaklis said:

Is the procedure for doing an in-place Win 10 non-destructive repair still valid?
I am on 21h1 of win 10 Pro x64. I created this as a fresh install onto a new SSD. I found some bugs in 21h1, which I reported. Now 21h1 appears trashed. I couldn't install the Windows update kb5006670. That seems to have trashed the windows logs so I can't diagnose the error. It also seems to have trashed VSS, so I cannot do any backups, or even clone the system to a HDD.
It makes no sense for me to repeat the fresh install, so a non-destructive install is more attractive.
I still have the 21h1 install thumb-drive. Can I run setup.exe from it?
However:
This might still leave me with a buggy 21h1. My friend was on 1903 and windows update brought him up to 21h1 and he doesn't have the problems I had doing a clean 21h1 install. So, can I do a non-destructive install from my corrupted 21h1 to 1903? I still have my 1903 DVD,

You can't downgrade using this method - 21H1 to 1903 is a downgrade. No way to go backwards without a clean install or restoring a backup image.

You can run setup from your 21H1 to try a repair install and should keep your files and apps.

If an in place upgrade repair can be performed and if it fixes the underlying problems then you're set.

If the in place upgrade repair cannot be performed or if it fails to fix underlying problems then other options include:

a) Windows refresh
b) reset save files
c) custom install
d) clean install

If there are no driver problems the drivers can be backed up and restored.

Applications need to be reinstalled.

After performing the above you can make free backup images.

Then if there are any problems in the future you can restore backup images.


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