I have a corrupt profile after a windows update. Can I repair advice?  

"What is a system image? Will this save program files? What about the hidden Office 2007 files, fonts, and certain system files? What does a system image do, and how is it made?"
A full image, a system image, is a snapshot of your OS partitions -- that snapshot is really a compression of everything contained within your Windows partitions, all of Windows, all of the 3rd party stuff, all: setups, configurations, icons, taskbar stuff, desktop stuff, everything visible and invisible, totally backed up -- compressed into a large full image file. If made by Macrium Reflect: mimg extension I think.
Using Macrium Reflect or any backup/restore program of your choosing -- you make a DVD boot and a USB flash drive boot. These boots are necessary when doing a Restore [and can be used to even make backups].
A Restore will take the full image and "expand and copy" everything found in the said image onto your target: SSD or HDD. Upon restore completion, the target SSD or HDD will be exactly what Windows and everything else was at the time of the backup.
Addendum: I also make data partition backups, meaning my nonOS, my information partition, called D, is backed up the same way my OS partitions are backed up. I keep separate external usb HDDs for each laptop. And, each laptop has two dedicated OS backup drives and two dedicated data backup drives. Believe me, I have done many Restores!

JoshuaM said:

Also, what about that command prompt thing, can it back up to external hard drives? I didn't see anything about that on that link.

Yes. The diagram shows the internal & external HDDs I had connected at the time.

I have improved the instructions in the post below.

Denis

If a failure to load Windows or inability to log in forces you to backup files manually before carrying out repair procedures then your Windows 10 Installation disk or Recovery drive will help you to do the job.

[Personally, I always make Installation disks on USB and I never make Recovery drives.]

Booting from either of these disks gives you access to a Command prompt that can be used as a rudimentary File explorer to find your way around your internal & external disks and to copy files between them.
- Windows is not running so you will not need to enter any Windows user account passwords.
- Windows is not running so you will not be hindered by any Windows permissions issues.

This procedure helps you rescue files in circumstances that are liable to be fraught so I have endeavoured to explain the necessary actions plainly so that you can get the job done. Whilst the whole thing might seem daunting, each individual step is straightforward.

1 Boot from a USB Drive - TenForumsTutorials
As it boots:-

1.1 You will have to complete a dialog of dropdown list selections for Language, Time-Currency Region, Keyboard layout.
1.2 Then you'll reach the main screen with the option to Install now but do not click on that. Look in the lower-left and you'll see an option to Repair your computer and it is this that you need to click on.
1.3 In the menu that appears, click on Troubleshoot.
1.4 {For Recovery drive booting only} In the menu that appears, click on Advanced options.
1.5 In the menu that appears, click on Command prompt.
These steps are illustrated in Option 1 of Open a Command Prompt at Boot - TenForumsTutorials

2.1 In the Command prompt, type the word Notepad press the Return key & then press Winkey right-arrow to move the Notepad window to the right-hand side of the display.

2.2 Return to the Command prompt [use Alt-Tab to get there if you need to], once again type the word Notepad press the Return key & then press Winkey left-arrow to move this Notepad window to the left-hand side of the display.

2.3 In both of the Notepad windows,

- select Open
- set Files of type to All files
- click on ThisPC

2.4 You will see all the connected drives. Note that the temporary OS set up by booting from the InstallUSB or Recovery drive chooses its own temporary drive letters so you will have to identify your drives from their labels or by browsing their contents.
- When you think you have positively identified a particular drive, stop & double-check. You might end up hopelessly confused by a mistake at this stage.
- Don't try to copy any files to or from X:\ - it is a virtual drive that vanishes when you reboot.
- The changed drive letters are only temporary. Your drive letters will all return to their normal values when you eventually boot back into Windows itself.

2.5 Connect the external disk that you will be backing files up to, in the left-hand Notepad window press the F5 key to Refresh the window {or right-click, Refresh}. Browse to the external disk by double-clicking on it then, if desired, to a chosen folder within it.

2.6 In the right-hand Notepad window, browse to one of the folders you will be copying files from.

2.7 I suggest that you keep the windows and their purposes the same throughout this procedure so that you always copy right-to-left [Source to Target]. This ought to help avoid mistakes.

3.1 In the right-hand window, browse to then select the files & folders you want to copy. You can use right-click, Copy or Ctrl-C to do the copying.

3.2 In the left-hand window, browse to then select the folders you want to paste into. You can use right-click, Paste or Ctrl-V to do the pasting.

3.3 Keep doing this until you have copied every file you want.

4 When you have finished, you can close the Notepad windows & the Command prompt window then turn off the computer.

---

When I first had to do this, I found positively identifying my drives awkward because several of them had similar contents. From then on, I gave every drive a meaningful label such as

OS10,
OS7,
OSXP,
MyFiles,
ExtraStufff,
Backup1,
Backup2,
…

This has proved to be of great help in avoiding mistakes.

Denis

JoshuaM said:

Right now, I have one USB drive for making a bootable media

That's the thing to use to create your Windows 10 Installation disk [InstallUSB]. The link takes you through making it.

JoshuaM said:

I do not have access to DVDs

Personally, I would not make it on DVD even if I still had any.

Denis

JoshuaM said: "I do not have access to DVDs."
Denis said: "Personally, I would not make it on DVD even if I still had any."
Because I have DVD blanks, I always make both DVD boots and USB boots, because once in a while, for whatever reason, USB boot - doesn't. DVD boot almost always, almost every time, boots. This double-boot is important when I am in the midst of beginning to commence to embark upon getting started on a Restore.

Don't worry about using DVDs. DVDs hold 4.xGB plus/minus. There is no need to buy a pack of blank DVDs.
I do recommend making "twin" USB flash drive backup/restore boots, that way, if one usb fd does not boot for whatever reason, the other one probably will work just fine! I only mentioned DVDs because of my experiences in the past.

The whole subject of DVDs has been an unproductive diversion. You have a suitable USB so use it.

Denis