[Article] How to: Perform a Repair Upgrade Using the Windows 11 or Windows 10 ISO file

Question

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Technical Level : Intermediate

Summary

If your Windows 11 or Windows 10 installation is demonstrating unusual behavior such as built in apps not working or launching, you can perform a repair upgrade to fix the problem. A repair upgrade is the process of installing Windows over the existing installation on your hard disk, using your installation USB, DVD media or ISO file. Performing this can repair broken operating system files while preserving your personal files, settings and installed applications.

Details

The first thing you will need to do is download the latest .ISO file available for Windows 11 or Windows 10.

Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Community Contributor Kapil Arya has prepared a step by step video which shows you how the actual repair upgrade works.

To download official ISO media for Windows 11 or Windows 10 from Microsoft.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download

Starting the installation

When you download the .ISO file, you can start the upgrade immediately by simply double clicking the .ISO file to mount it. If you are running Windows 8/8.1 and plan to upgrade your operating system, you can also use this method. Windows 7 and earlier will need to prepare install media.

Repair Upgrade Windows 11

After downloading the Windows 11 ISO media, launch File Explorer, the double click the setup file under This PC

Windows will prepare setup, if prompted, click Yes.

Once the setup wizard starts, Windows will go through series of steps such as downloading essential updates to ensure a smooth upgrade and require accepting the license agreement.

At this point, you can change settings whether you want to keep on files or apps. Since we are performing a repair upgrade, we will leave these settings as is. Click Install to begin the repair upgrade.

During this portion of setup, Windows will copy files then restart your computer.

This will be your screen until the repair upgrade is complete

Once the repair upgrade is complete, you can sign into Windows 11

Repair Upgrade Windows 10

Here I have my .ISO file downloaded and mounted. All I need to do is double click setup to begin the installation.

Windows is preparing setup.

Read and accept the Windows License terms then click Accept

If you see this screen and it goes by really quick, don't worry, you will get a chance when its done configuring to choose what you want to keep.

Windows 10 doing additional configurations.

At the 'Ready to install' screen you are presented with a summer which includes the task to be completed:

• Install Windows 10 Pro
• Keep Windows Settings, personal files and apps

Click Change what to keep make any necessary adjustments.

Once satisfied, click Install

Windows 10 setup will then change to full screen, wait while setup installs. Your computer will be restarted automatically.

After restarting, Windows logo will appear on screen, this might be here for a while, as long as you see the indicator, everything should be ok.

Here you are presented with the new setup experience that provides a spherical progress indicator of the installation process. When complete, you will see the Getting ready notification appear on screen. As noted, your computer will restart during this phase of setup.

Sign into your account and click Next

Here you are preseted with the Out of Box Experience. The Out of Box Experience page is where you get to configure detailed settings in Windows, which includes creating a user account, privacy, sync PC settings and install modern applications. For the purposes of this article, I will choose Use express settings

Wait while Windows finalizes your settings

Continue to wait while Windows installs modern applications.

Sign in if prompted

That's it! You have successfully completed a repair upgrade.

Press Windows key + R

Type: winver

Hit Enter on your keyboard to verify the build number

You can also see this in the build number on the desktop