Windows 10 reset

Uncle Pierre

Hi all. Hoping for some help here. Sorry if this has been covered to death in the past, but I don't see anything recent and the search function here doesn't seem to be working right now.

Anyway, am running Windows 10 on a HP Pavilion laptop that’s close to six years old. Won’t put up all the specs as I’m not sure they’re relevant to what I think is just a general inquiry.

Have been having regular problems lately (on average 2 to 3 times a week) with sudden blue screens of death. They’re usually “kernel security check error” but lately I’ve also seen “page fault in non paged area” and “system service exception”.

Am almost blue in the face myself by running checks/fixes as advised by other sites. All seems fine for a while after I do them, but then I’ll get a blue screen again a couple of days later. For example, I had one Saturday, and another one today (Tuesday).

Am now at the point of considering the full Windows Reset option. Have already backed up all files to an external drive, just in case. So basically, two questions:

1 – Good idea, yes or no?
2 – Anything to be particularly wary of, or careful about?

For example, the computer had Windows 8 when I bought it, and it upgraded to 10 somewhere along the line. I don’t believe this should make any difference, but am I right?

Thanks in advance.

CatInABox

Sounds like your at the point where a full reset is in order all right.

Nothing really too difficult about it, and so long as you're happy that you've got all the files you want off it, then you should be good to go. It might be worthwhile downloading some drivers onto a USB key so that you can get your computer back up and running in a pinch, but to be honest, it's been so long since I've seen the installer miss out on a component.

smuggler.ie

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12415


I would go for fresh install...
Win reset or fresh install wont resolve hardware issues(page fault in non paged area could be RAM problem)

smuggler.ie

If you have restore point before issues started try it first, might be "latest updates" f-it up...

Uncle Pierre

Thanks to you both for the quick and helpful replies, but I’m afraid I now have follow-up questions. Hope you don’t mind!

CatInaBox – when you say download some drivers, anything in particular?

Smuggler – if neither reset nor fresh install will solve that “page fault” issue, then what’s the advantage of fresh install over reset?

Also, I’ve lost track of when these problems first arose as regards before or after certain restore points. And can’t help wondering anyway – even if I do remove a recent update, and even if I find that it was the troublesome one, will Windows not just try install that update again at some stage? Giving rise to the same problems again?

CatInABox

Uncle Pierre wrote: »

Thanks to you both for the quick and helpful replies, but I’m afraid I now have follow-up questions. Hope you don’t mind!

CatInaBox – when you say download some drivers, anything in particular?

Smuggler – if neither reset nor fresh install will solve that “page fault” issue, then what’s the advantage of fresh install over reset?

Also, I’ve lost track of when these problems first arose as regards before or after certain restore points. And can’t help wondering anyway – even if I do remove a recent update, and even if I find that it was the troublesome one, will Windows not just try install that update again at some stage? Giving rise to the same problems again?

I used to download my Wifi driver, as if the installer doesn't recognise my wifi card, then I have to use a network cable to get on the WiFi, at which point I can update everything. Hasn't been needed in ages, in fairness, but the one time it did happen to me, it was most annoying.

Might be best to download the actual Windows 10 installer as well (it's free to download), as that will allow you to do a fresh install if the reset fails. Otherwise you'll be looking for another computer with which to download it while yours is broken.

If it's a hardware issue, then a fresh install won't do anything that a reset will.

paw patrol

had this problem for last few weeks - tired all options
including few restore.

currently half my options on windows don't work - shortcuts don't work even though they are correct.
Somethig fundamentally wrong

PC is 9 years old and I have a new one ordered around same time this became apparent - so I actually gave up and will just wait the delivery of new pc

and then see

smuggler.ie

Reset (if successful)should get your computer to factory state - including all manufacturer bloatware. It might preserve some drivers,but how do we know this is not an issue...

Its repair vs new to my view, and i would do diskpart > clean

Course lookup HP site for Win 10 drives for your machine in advance

Sconsey

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Reset (if successful)should get your computer to factory state - including all manufacturer bloatware. It might preserve some drivers,but how do we know this is not an issue...

Its repair vs new to my view, and i would do diskpart > clean

Course lookup HP site for Win 10 drives for your machine in advance

The way reset works in Win 10 is it stores the patches and content locally in the Windows Component Store. Windows will not add content to the store immediately after patches are installed, I believe it waits something like 60 days before committing any new drivers or patches to the component store. the logic being that if it didnt mess up the OS after 60 days it is probably alright to add to the reset content. This means a reset will restore your OS (not applications) to a fairly recently patched state., you will lose all your apps.
Microsoft are adding the option to pull all your reset content over the internet from Windows Update, meaning you will get the latest OS version fully patched, but not sure if they have enabled this feature yet.

smuggler.ie

How exactly do you do reset without internet connection if they implement that...? They must think that Ireland is already 101% with fiber connections

Any way, i'm not strictly against reset, that was/is my opinion and view, for OP to decide what option to go for...

Providing there is no other working computer available, having bootable USB and set of drivers beforehand would be wise, don't you agree....

Uncle Pierre

Thanks again to all for help here.

Story since I was last here is that I decided last night to have one more go at the regular checks/fixes, in the hope that full reset or fresh install might not be necessary after all. To be honest, I'm still a bit wary of doing something which seems so drastic and which I'm not sure I'd be able to put right if anything went wrong in the process.

So, I saw there was a regular Windows update available, but also a Features Update (2004). I decided to go for it, so after about three to four hours altogether of downloading and installing and configuring and restarting several times, I was welcomed to my new version of Windows.

Honestly don't know if this is the same as a reset or a fresh install or anything else (I'm not hugely PC or Windows literate!), but will see how it goes for a while, and hope for the best.

Am conscious of what smuggler said above about the "page fault" error possibly being a hardware issue that none of this would fix anyway, but I've only actually seen that message once - vast majority of the time has been about the kernel security check error.

So, fingers crossed.....!

Thanks again to all.

Uncle Pierre

Just decided to update this thread in case any other non-computery person like myself (you know what I mean!) is ever looking for advice on the same thing.

About three to four days after the features update, I got a blue screen again, so I decided to go ahead with the full reset anyway, and hope for the best.

It took about four hours and several restarts and a number of times when the progress counter seemed to stall instead of make progress, but got there in the end, without me ever having to do anything after just hitting "reset" in the first place. That's about three weeks ago now, and all has been fine since then. Hoping it stays that way!

smuggler.ie

Uncle Pierre wrote: »

It took about four hours and several restarts and a number of times when the progress counter seemed to stall instead of make progress

...and this is where i prefer fresh install, where justifiable, that completes in 30min...

rayzercork

i used to run ccleaner first to clean out old junk then scan the system by opening the command shell as admin and typing sfc /scannow

let it fix what it needs to then reboot when done. has helped me out before..

Uncle Pierre

Difference here lads is that I wouldn't even know what a command shell is, never mind what to do there....and I wouldn't feel comfortable trying a full fresh install either.

I came here in the first place to hopefully get some reassurance that I wasn't considering something stupid, and that even a know-next-to-nothing type of person like myself should be able to manage a reset without messing the whole thing up.

So thanks again for the help along the way (even if some of it was a case of blinding me with science at times!), and the reason I put up the latest update was to maybe provide some other reassurance to some other poor eejit like myself in future, if he or she happens to come wandering into this forum for the same reason.

Computer's still working well anyway.

rayzercork

Uncle Pierre wrote: »

Difference here lads is that I wouldn't even know what a command shell is, never mind what to do there....and I wouldn't feel comfortable trying a full fresh install either.

I came here in the first place to hopefully get some reassurance that I wasn't considering something stupid, and that even a know-next-to-nothing type of person like myself should be able to manage a reset without messing the whole thing up.

So thanks again for the help along the way (even if some of it was a case of blinding me with science at times!), and the reason I put up the latest update was to maybe provide some other reassurance to some other poor eejit like myself in future, if he or she happens to come wandering into this forum for the same reason.

Computer's still working well anyway.

its good to ask questions even if they may seem stupid, once you figure out a solution and it works is all that matters really.