How can I tell if my Windows 10 Repair Install was successful?

[Nisko]

I just performed a Repair Install and it appeared to complete successfully. However, the tutorial said I would lose all my custom icons. I started with version 1604 and now have version 1703 - but haven't lost any of my custom icons. This is fine by me if I was successful. Would someone please tell me if I was successful and that not losing custom icons is a feature of a Windows 10 Repair Install?

The reason I wanted to perform a Repair Install in the first place is that: When I would open "Computer" (for instance), it would take 10 to 20 seconds for the hourglass to turn into the arrow so I could begin working on a folder. I believed this was a glitch because I installed Windows 10 on top of Windows 7 - and have a number of issues since then. Most of them have been worked out and I didn't want to perform a clean install because I have too many programs installed. With all the custom settings and install time, this 72 year old might not be around when the work was completed.

 

[Regedit32]

That sounds perfectly normal to me Nisko.

When you do a Repair Install [in-place Upgrade], you have the option to save files and settings, and from your post it sounds like that is the option you took.

In that scenario pretty much everything you had installed would remain and only the Windows OS files themselves would be overwritten and replaced with the repaired install.

Some third party applications cannot migrate properly during a Repair install, and in that situation their Data files, and program files are put into the Windows.old directory, located at C:\Windows.old

If that happened all you need to do is re-install the applications onto your new Windows operating system, then using File Explorer, copy data from the C:\Windows.old and paste that into your new install on C:\Windows

An example:

I was fiddling with Windows Essential 2012 a while back which included Windows Live Mail

After doing a Repair install I discovered that while successful, the Windows Live Mail application did not migrate, and thus its data files were moved to the C:\Windows.old

So I re-installed my Windows Live Mail then I went to C:\Windows.old\Users\Regedit\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail and copied all the folders there then I went to C:\Windows\Users\Regedit32\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail and pasted the copied files from Windows.old to the newly installed location on my C:\Windows location.

As a result when I opened Windows Live Mail, now newly re-installed, all my old emails were there and my account settings were too, meaning I could immediately access new mail and send mail etcetera.

Thus in conclusion, if you are happy with how your OS is now running I'd say its more than reasonable to conclude your Repair Install was indeed successful.

 

[Nisko]

Thank you - I believe my problem is solved. I'll give it another week to be sure.