Windows Repair Your Computer

[Analisa Wack]

Ifyou're still using Windows 10 (my preference too), but now find it's struggling to load, or maybe it starts up but crashes a lot. Either way, you need to fix the problem before you can use your laptop. If your screen is rotated, we have an easy fix for that. If the operating system is booting slower than molasses, you can also use power settings to speed up its launch. Otherwise, here are a few ways to repair Windows 10. By now the way, if you're wondering how to stop a Windows update from automatically restarting your PC, we've got you covered.

1. Navigate to the Windows 10 Advanced Startup Options menu. On many laptops, hitting F11 as soon as you power on will get you to the Windows 10 Advanced Startup Options. Booting off an install disk and hitting Next then Repair offers a secondary option.

Windows will take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to attempt to fix the problem. (It may not be able to.) If you don't actually have a startup problem, it will also say it can't fix the problem.

If you want to get a clean start, free from rogue software and drivers, you usually don't need to do a full install. Instead, Windows 10 provides a built-in reset feature that takes your computer back to the way it was before you had any software, special devices, or data preloaded. (On a side note, if you're giving your computer to someone else, resetting is a good way to wipe it.)

If all else fails and you can't even reset your Windows computer, you can reinstall the OS entirely. You won't even need an activation number or any proof of purchase, either. Just make sure you have more than 4GB of space available, as that's how much space the file you'll download takes up. Here's how to reinstall Windows 10:

I've got a Dell T310 server for which we have made volume backups of the system drive with Windows Backup. I'm trying to restore one of these, which means I need to boot from the Windows install CD. I also know I need to load the PERC storage controller drivers, and have them on a USB.

There is usually splash screen which asks for your language/keyboard settings and then offers options to "Install Now" and "Repair your computer". Normally, I would click "Repair your computer", which opens the System Recovery dialog. From there, I would choose the "Load drivers" button, browse to the drivers on the USB and carry on from there.

However, when this server boots, it asks for the language/keyboard settings, then immediately says "A required CD/DVD device driver is missing." and prompts for the driver. I point it at the PERC drivers on the USB and it continues.

Automatic Repair is a Windows feature designed to assist in resolving operating system and software issues to ensure the stability of your device. When your Windows operating system encounters errors, problems, or crashes, the Automatic Repair feature will attempt to automatically detect, identify, and fix these issues. For further automatic repair details, you may refer to the official documentation provided by Microsoft.

If the issue started recently and you have previously created a system restore point or a system-created restore point, you can try to restore the system to a point in time before the problem started to resolve it.

Remove all external devices, including the keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, printer, memory cards, CDs in the optical drive, and any adapter cards in card readers. Sometimes, external devices can prevent your device from entering the repair screen.

Sometimes a Windows 10 system starts misbehaving to the point where repair is needed. This often takes the form of worsening performance or stability, and can originate from damage to, loss of, or corruption of Windows system files (normally in the C:\Windows folder hierarchy). When that happens, users would be well advised to break out the following routine to help them set things back to rights.

The amount of time and effort required for each step goes up incrementally. Some steps involve additional work to get your PC more or less back to where it was prior to taking that step. Thus, the most important bit of advice I can dispense for those who must venture beyond Step 1 is this: make a complete backup of your system to provide a source for files and settings that might otherwise go missing. Ignore this at your own risk.

Even if errors were detected in the preceding step, this command should complete successfully. It replaces corrupt or questionable elements in the Windows Side-by-Side (WinSxS) store, reading from a local copy of your Windows image files by default.

The /restorehealth command can be tricky to use. Because it actually repairs a Windows image, it needs a source from which to attempt such repairs. You can omit the /source option, but if you do, the command will try to grab its files from Windows Update over the internet. This may or may not work, depending on firewall settings on your network.

The syntax for image files is where things can get interesting. To point to the install.wim file that shows up in ISO downloads for the Windows 10 or 11 installer on a USB flash drive designated L:, for example, you must use the following source specification (which uses the first image it finds inside the .wim file, designated :1):

Figure 3 shows sample output when SFC finds files in need of repair. If this occurs on your PC, repeat the SFC /scannow command until you see the clean bill of health shown in Figure 4. This seldom takes more than two or three tries (on the system shown in Figures 3 and 4, it took one repeat only).

For Windows 10 or 11, this technique essentially involves overwriting the current OS installation with a fresh new copy while leaving data files, settings, and preferences alone. That means running the Windows 10 or 11 installer for the same version/build currently running on the machine from inside Windows itself. As you will learn at the end of this section, this is markedly easier for Windows 11 than it is for Windows 10.

Before launching into this process, be sure to log in to Windows 10 with an administrative account. Most experts recommend that you disable or uninstall any third-party antivirus or security software (anything other than Windows Defender, in other words) and turn off Fast Boot and Secure Boot in your UEFI firmware settings (if turned on). You can reinstate these items when the in-place upgrade is complete.

Reset this PC is convenient and requires no supplementary media, but I prefer a more traditional approach: performing a clean Windows installation from a bootable USB drive or mounted ISO, covered next.

This option means starting over with a completely new OS installation. Why might this be necessary? Aside from reasons such as incurable system instability, malware infestation, or problems that take longer to fix than the time is worth, it may be desirable to switch from legacy BIOS emulation to using available UEFI. It might also be desirable to wipe the boot/system drive clean to remove leftover items (recovery partitions, OEM partitions, and so forth) from older Windows versions and let Windows start over with a clean slate.

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Startup repair is an integrated troubleshooting utility in Microsoft Windows. It is designed to quickly fix the most common issues that may be preventing your computer from booting into the operating system.

There are multiple ways to initiate startup repair. This feature can be run from the desktop, but it can also be run from outside Windows using the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). If the computer cannot boot into the WinRE, Startup Repair can be run using a Windows installation disk.

I've got myself into a bit of a pickle and could really use your collective wisdom. I've been locked out of my Windows 10 computer (yeah, I know, should've written down the password) and I'm scratching my head on how to get back in. Has anyone here been through this and managed to reset their password without being able to log in?

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