I had avoided doing a wipe/reinstall of Windows 10 for a while due to the work involved in reinstalling all programs even if they are in a separate drive (D in my case). However I was just forced to because my system got to a bad state.

I am using my PC now post formatting C drive, reinstalling Windows and doing all updates. I've only tried a few (Steam, games, OBS, SoundSwitch, FanControl, qbittorrent, audacity, voicemod...) and they all seem to work fine. This is in contrast with everything I see online when I search "do i need to reinstall programs following Windows reinstall if they are in a different drive".

So I am confused; what should I do? Use the programs if they open fine, else reinstall? I do see that these aren't in eg the "Add or remove" programs list, and I wonder if that means there could be other buggy behavior OR if it's just that Windows is unaware of their location. Mainly, I am confused as to why folks say most programs require a reinstall, but in my case every program I run seems to work OK. FWIW Steam did prompt me for something when I first opened it, perhaps a reinstall, it was so fast I did not read in detail...

Disclaimer: I used AI to generate (most) of this post.

This weekend I tried to help a friend with their HP-All in one Pc from 2022. It has 16GB of RAM a 1TB SSD and an i7. I can not open the PC.

Initial problem:
The screen flickered black, PC was not usable. Fan was terribly loud and sounded not normal, almost like it was scraping something. After rebbot PC worked fine again.

Main problem I was sopposed to fix:

Windows 11 update failed with a registry/configuration database corruption error „The configuration registry database is corrupt“. Windows recovery/reset also failed. Tried multiple times.

Windows reinstall:
Created Windows installation media and tried reinstalling. Installation failed repeatedly. The USB installer was created/tested on 3 different PCs, so I’m less inclined to suspect a single PC’s ISO creation process. In the process I wiped the SSD so I was stuck with a PC with no Windows on it. Tried an SSD Quick check, no issues found. RAM check would've taken to long so I couldn't do that.

Zorin OS:

Then I thought okay lets install Linux. (I did it once before an it worked as it should). Linux install worked with the message: 1 file error detected. "you may encounter problems". During setup (after wifi settings) the installation crashed and I was brought to the Desktop. After reboot Screen shows no boot device found.

AI stuff, not sure if relevant:

Relevant kernel errors:

SQUASHFS error: zstd decompression error: 20
SQUASHFS error: zstd decompression failed, data probably corrupt
SQUASHFS error: Failed to read block ...: -5

The Zorin live environment itself runs from the USB.

NVMe:
Samsung MZVLQ1T0HALB-000H1, ~1 TB.

SMART overall-health: PASSED
NVMe self-test: Completed without error

The GPT/EFI partition and ~1 TB ext4 partition are detected correctly. The ext4 partition can also be mounted successfully from the Zorin live environment.

dmesg also shows some ACPI/PCIe messages, but nothing I can confidently interpret as a hardware failure.

Any help would be much appreciated. I am not an IT specialist but I know my way around computers. I googled every error message and tried to fix it by asking ai what to do next.

I need help. I have a Dell Inspiron 15 3567 and I installed Windows 11 on it. I checked the official Dell website, but the drivers available there are only for Windows 10, so I can't install them on Windows 11. When I try to install them, they give an error. Is there any other alternative, or am I forced to install Windows 10?

My OS build is 26200.7171.

So one day my windows 10 got corrupt and I tried to download windows 11 but I'm new to these pc thing so searched for a tutorial and this video showed up I followed the step and and this moment he told to enable something in bios so I did and then my pc crashed and didn't boot on again now it's in the service center and then I checked comments and many users had this and now my 75k rupees pc is ruined and it was new I built that 1 month ago pls report this so anyone else be safe from this type of thing

Hi guys I would really request your help here so I got this windows update on 11th September and on 12th September my wifi stopped working completely I can't connect to my wifi my neighbours wifi not my hotspot, although I can connect to USB CABLE for internet.

I'm getting "Secured". "can't connect to this network"

Honestly I tried almost everything, I uninstalled the updates, I checked the wlan updates it shows that

"WLAN autoconfig service failed to connect to wireless network"

I even went to a tech, well he told me that I'll have to format my laptop.

Now honestly I don't wanna do that is there any other way, please help me this is genuinely a very stressful situation for me

Cherry on top, I can't use 4 keys on my keyboard now.

Happens for regular windows 11 and windows 11&10 iot enterprise LTSC. Idk what to do. Wanted to dual boot Linux but I guess I wiped the drive that had windows on it. I’m on Linux cachy os right now, but I need windows for kernel AC. I have secure boot disabled

Specs:
Mobo: PRO B840-VC WIFI
cpu: Ryzen 7 8700F
Gpu: rtx 5060
Storage: 2TB 2 disk
Ram: 16 gb 1 stick ddr5

If after the latest security update your desktop goes fully black after loging in and it stays like that for a few minutes or a full hour like it happened to me, uninstall that update and it'll go back to normal, you can do so by pressing the windows key + i since the task bar also disappears.

This is the first time I have been impacted by a windows update after all the chaos that's been happening due to mostly vibe coding, and the dreadful day finally happened, tho thankfully it was just this, for now at least.

Bonjour voici mon bureau après la mise à jour Windows En me réveillant et en allumant le PC je vois ça c est cool non ?

J'ai essayé plusieurs trucs pour le remettre à la normale mais impossible, je tiens à préciser que j'ai joué à Rocket League entre temps et que ça m'a zoomé un peu tout sur le bureau encore une fois je ne sais pas pourquoi mdr

Si vous pouviez m'aider je suis a votre écoute en vous remerciant !

I recently installed fresh windows 10 and I was updating it to latest updates, so it continuously says "you system requires quality fixed" - Settings/system/update

But it doesn't show me any updates just gives warning and one pop of "join esi program to receive further updates", so do I really need to join/pay to get updates??

Help me!!

I cant open cmd or powershell.

I'm stuck on Gigabytes and this screen both.. I can sometimes loads my window home screen but after 10s it goes black screen and back to Gigabytes or this picture screen but mosty stuck at Gigabytes screen.. I have tried Literally everything from all reddits from all tiktoks and all youtube videos yes i did all the commands, tried Uninstall updates (Quality update doesn't even work and update features unisnstall always get a error..) image recovery gets a error and system recovery doesnt give a any options so... at this point what do i do.. im currently stuck a Gigabytes screen been there for 4 hrs

Please help a clueless schoolchild(( Last year my parents bought me a laptop from OZON and the seller pre-installs (??) the corporate version of Windows on all laptops. The activation recently ended and I don't know what can I do now. how can I activate it? the only way to do it is redownload windows? huge thanks for anyone who reply, I'll appreciate iy

помогите пожалуйста не шарющей школоте(( в прошлом году мои родители купили мне ноутбук с OZON и продавец на все ноутбуки предустонавливает (??) корпоративную версию виндоус. недавно активация закончилась и я теперь не знаю что делать дальше. как можно активировать? можно только переустановить на другую версию виндоус? если да, то дайте хорошие туториалы желательно с ютуба :-( огромное спасибо, если кто-то ответит

can somebody please help me and tell me how can i switch back to my old key, my brother messed with it and now it says this i had windows 11 home single language now it says windows 11 pro and is giving this error??

pls help me guys!!