When your Windows 10/11 is not working as it used to be or your Windows has some severe issues, you can always fix it by reinstalling Windows 10/11. The problem is to reinstall Windows 10/11 usually will lose all the data and the programs you installed.
Actually, it is possible to reinstall Windows 10/11 without losing anything. In this article, I will show you how to reinstall Windows 10/11 without losing data or programs.
Reinstall Windows 10/11 without losing Programs
If your Windows 10 boot fine and all the installed programs are working fine, then you can use the following steps to reinstall Windows 10 without losing files and apps. This is the only method to reinstall Windows 10 without losing your installed apps. It requires more than 30GB of storage space on C: drive.
- Prepare Windows 10 installation ISO file. You can download it from the Microsoft official website or use the Windows Media Creation tool to make an installation ISO.
- Since you are running Windows 10/8, you can double-click to mount the ISO file. If you are running Windows 7, you have to use other tools to mount it. Go to the root directory, double-click to run the Setup.exe file. Sometimes, this will fail, then go to the Resource folder, find the Setup.exe and run it.
- Wait a short while for the Windows 10 Setup to get ready. Then you can follow the wizard to choose to download updates or not based on your needs.
- In the next step, click Change what to keep and from there, you can select Keep personal files, apps, and Windows settings or Keep personal files only.
- Click Next to install Windows 10 without losing data or apps.
This method will take much longer than a clean installation of Windows 10 because it will scan your hard drive and move files around. If you just want to keep your apps but your files, then try the next method.
Reset Windows 10 without losing files
As you may know, Windows 10/11 provides the feature Reset this PC to help you solve system problems by fresh installing Windows 10/11. It allows you to choose whether to keep your personal files or not.
Step 1. Click on Start and select Settings > Update&Security > Recovery > Reset this PC. You can also reset Windows 10 from the command line using the command “systemreset” (without quotes).
Step 2. You will be asked if you want to keep your files or remove everything. Since you want to reinstall Windows 10 without losing files, just click on “Keep my files”.
Step 3. Follow the Reset Wizard and continue to click a few Nexts and you are good to go.
During the process, you will computer will reboot a few times. When the reset is complete, you can enter your personal information and start fresh.
If your system fails to boot, you can boot into recovery mode. From there, you should be able to reset your PC while keeping your personal files. If you cannot even boot into recovery mode within your computer, you can create a Windows recovery disk to reset your Windows 10.
Reinstall without removing old files
If you prefer install Windows 10/11 from USB drive or installation disc, if you do not reformat your C: drive. All your old files will be saved in Windows.old folder. All the programs you installed will be lost after the installation. Before you do, make sure your C: drive has more than 30GB of free space.
Step 1. Insert your installation drive and boot from it.
Step 2. When it loads from the installation disk, select the language and keyword.
Step 3. At the Setup screen, just select the C: drive and click Next to start installing Windows 10.
Step 4. Follow the Setup wizard and wait for the installation to finish.
When the process is done. You can copy all your needed files from Windows.old folder. Windows.old folder will be saved for 30 days. After that period, all your old files will be removed.
That’s all three ways to reinstall Windows 10/11 without losing data. The first method even allows you to keep all the installed programs along with all the files. I hope this helps you to solve your problem.