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Factory Image Missing Upgraded W10 Anniversary HELP!

TheWitt
By TheWitt
in Windows
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Go to solution Solved by Kyle_N,

Download Windows 10 here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can download the tool on any PC and create a USB stick (4GB or larger) or DVD to clean install or upgrade Windows 10. It will include the latest version of Windows, so you don't need to install updates after.

 

You can use this to install Windows on any computer. If the computer previously had Windows 10 (any version) installed and activated, you don't need to enter a product key, it will reactivate automatically. No key needed (you won't have a key for upgraded computers anyways).

 

For computers that came with Windows 10 preinstalled, it will automatically detect and install the correct edition, otherwise it will ask you (you'll probably need Home or Pro).

 

This also works with Windows 8/8.1, if you need to reinstall that: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8

Posted

My sister is home for the holidays, and he is having me work on her computer. Everything has been backed up. The plan is to do an entire clean restart of Windows 10, but, because we upgraded from 8.1 to W10 Anniversary and we failed to create a factory image we do not have that to fall back to. Further, we do not, for some reason, have any restore checkpoints stored since that point. So, when I try to factory reset it, whether that be from a clean wipe to a simple remove non-windows apps but keep documents, it fail every time. So, after some googling I tried Microsoft's "Refresh Windows Install" software, but that failed as well (I tried multiple times restarting the device in between each attempt). I have tried other suggestions as well, but the last resort I can think of is downloading the Win10 OS from another computer and using a USB to boot the computer and install it from there. Is there something else I should be trying?

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Just download the Windows 10 ISO, format the drive and install clean one.

Then it is guaranteed all old stuff (including unnecessary drivers, files, other trash, possible malware etc) will be gone and Windows will run smoothly.

HAL9000: AMD Ryzen 9 3900x | Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black | 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz | Asus X570 Prime Pro | ASUS TUF 3080 Ti | 1 TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus + 1 TB Crucial MX500 + 6 TB WD RED | Corsair HX1000 | be quiet Pure Base 500DX | LG 34UM95 34" 3440x1440

Hydrogen server: Intel i3-10100 | Cryorig M9i | 64 GB Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz DDR4 | Gigabyte B560M-DS3H | 33 TB of storage | Fractal Design Define R5 | unRAID 6.9.2

Carbon server: Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX100 S7p | Xeon E3-1230 v2 | 16 GB DDR3 ECC | 60 GB Corsair SSD & 250 GB Samsung 850 Pro | Intel i340-T4 | ESXi 6.5.1

Big Mac cluster: 2x Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | 1x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B | 2x Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

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  • Solution

Download Windows 10 here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can download the tool on any PC and create a USB stick (4GB or larger) or DVD to clean install or upgrade Windows 10. It will include the latest version of Windows, so you don't need to install updates after.

 

You can use this to install Windows on any computer. If the computer previously had Windows 10 (any version) installed and activated, you don't need to enter a product key, it will reactivate automatically. No key needed (you won't have a key for upgraded computers anyways).

 

For computers that came with Windows 10 preinstalled, it will automatically detect and install the correct edition, otherwise it will ask you (you'll probably need Home or Pro).

 

This also works with Windows 8/8.1, if you need to reinstall that: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8

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