I have had a very difficult and frustrating few weeks trying to trial and error my way along self learning.....I really do not know where to begin so bear with me folks. To assist in this divulging of said quandary i have suppled some screenshots which i hope will aid the process. My original concern was prompted by my inability to open the change pc settings menu. followed by the identical inability to open windows metro apps notably windows store. I have done lots of reading and tried all of the obvious routes. admittedly i did so as a complete bumbling noob so that may mean very little. i used the dism process to rid the os of corrupted windows store issues i think. although when i again ran troubleshooter i got the same error. here asre some pictures which might shed some light on the dim degradation of my desktop dilema also i noticed that refresh and reset utilities are disabled and greyed out along with most of the other system settings type tools. ok so ill close here and cross my fingers that somebody can help me!
also meant to note that i have many user accounts listed in the file explorer folder view but upon trying to manipulate user accounts i get just my profile showing up. To add to the insanity i ran ttrouble shooter which indicated that windows update and security settings were changed or altered, those are my words however and the actual readout was dissimilar to my terminologies here. Apologies in advance in regards to my n00bishness.
Is this a new build or did the computer have another OS on it originally?
Are you installing Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.0 then upgrade to 8.1?
Do you have a Windows 8.1 or 8.0 install DVD/flash drive?
it is a custom build. i originally installed 8 on the system about a year ago. it became buggy and corrupted so i had to refresh and following that i upgraded to 8.1. i do have the original 8 install media. i also created a recovery drive on usb. it may be worth mentioning that i only just managed to bring it back up at all days ago. it was booting to linux and failing for whatever reasons. i cannot even remeber how i remedied that. i used system startup options and finally was able to restore. i definitely do want to start over cleanly and concisely but i miss windows 7 and its familiar brand of operation.
i feel like my best option would bve finding someone decent enough to help me out remotely but i know time is money and people are busy.... there are so many seemingly ****ed up issues going on here that im at the point of pulling out my hair.
If you follow the tutorial I linked it should be pretty straight forward. If you have any problems or question post them here rather than plowing ahead if you're not sure what to do.
The one addition I would make is to install Classic Shell (free) or Stardock's Start8 ($4.99) then you will boot to the Desktop instead of the Modern Start Screen and have a normal Start button as you had in Windows 7. Makes things a lot simpler and familiar.
I prefer Start8 but have used both at one time or another.
alright thank you kind sir. i am unsure about backing my stuff though i mean should i delete those other users listed in c drive wiothout problems? also do i need to do a full system image backup and if so will all the crappy headaches that this os currently possesses come with my data? im sorry to bombard you with inquiries but tutorials online often leave a guy uncertain of the exact proper procedures. i mean i really only want to bring my videos music pictures books itunes library and those sort of subsets along with me to the clean install. lots of my files are kind of in the mix here and there placed wherever the application in use puts them. well i shall start absorbing these guides to the best of my ability for now..... oh! also i have raid harddrive so will that matter? do i need to completely reinitialize my system in the order a custom pc is recomended? my dad built this pc and installed everything but windows 8 so im totally lost in this regard. sorry for the multitude of questions and more so for the unorderly fashion that they are issuing forth but i am pressed for time and just trying to get this nightmare of an experience behind me without making my new system faulty in some way.
yeah i realize that i asked way too many general questions so dont worry about trying to answer themRich. thank you though for confirming my worst suspicions though. clean install here i come cheers
One way to be sure you have everything backed up is to do an image backup to an external hard drive. Then after you do a clean install, you can restore just the files you want, like videos music pictures books itunes library, etc and be sure you don't forget anything.
I'd recommend using Macrium Reflect Free to do this. You can pick up a 1TB external USB hard drive for $60 to $70. I got a Toshiba Canvio 1Tb USB 3.o for $59.