[SOLVED] Reinstalling Windows and keeping apps

[deltapacker]

So a few days ago my computer tried installing some update or feature and was shut down before it could finish, resulting in a corrupted bootres.dll file and being unable to start up or repair itself. I've already gone through the whole song and dance of chkdsk commands which are telling me I don't even have a copy of windows installed and yadda yadda, it's a bust. The only thing I haven't tried is resetting it to a factory default, but this has brought me pause.

Reset gives me an option to keep all my files, which is good, but it says it would uninstall all apps in the process. I've got hundreds of gigs worth of apps unfortunately and really don't want to have to reinstall everything. So I looked around and found out I could create a bootable USB with Win10 straight from Microsoft. When I look at the options to reinstall windows, it gives me one to keep my files AND my apps, but it still uses the lingo of storing everything in "Windows" which I assume means Windows (Old). It also asks for a product key for a first time install, ensuring me that if I'm simply reinstalling windows to click "I don't have have a key" and that it will just activate itself later, but obviously I had to make this bootable from a different computer so I don't know if this will cause any problems.

My questions: Has anybody used this method - experienced any problems with it? Will it actually keep my apps? Should I enter a product key if I do decide to do this? I can see all the guides and basics plainly, but not much in the way of details or the aftermath.

Thanks.

 

[taeioum]

You can use the USB drive with Windows 10 to repair your install of Windows 10. I would advise trying that first. Using the reset option will keep your documents, but will uninstall practically all of your applications. At the end of the reset, it will show a list of all programs still installed and which are uninstalled. I've tried this in the past and it made everything even more unstable and ended up reinstalling a clean Windows 10 version.

You can always check your Windows 10 serial with programs like ProduKey from NirSoft, though repairing with a thumb drive shouldn't ask for your product key.

tl;dr: Make a Win10 thumb drive using the Media Creation tool, try repairing it with that. If that doesn't work, a clean installation of Windows 10 is probably going to be your only good working option.

 

[deltapacker]

I already tried the repair option. It diagnoses the system for all of two seconds before immediately telling me it can't be repaired. Since the reset sounds like a problem, I guess a reinstall it will have to be.

 

[taeioum]

I'm sorry, I didn't read that you had tried repairing your installation. In my experience, as soon as Windows will not let itself be repaired, it's instantly more lucrative to reinstall Windows completely, though I didn't have hundres or even 10s of gigs worth of applications to reinstall/setup.