REFRESH your Windows 8.1 RTM installation without an installation media

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Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 comes with an awesome trick of refreshing your Windows installation on your PC which refreshes your Windows installation but, doesn’t remove the files and apps. Refresh was very easy in Windows 8 and it still is same easy in Windows 8.1 but, there are few extra steps for some users.



Refresh option is the best alternate of installing new Windows since it saves your files and apps and your files of Windows are refreshed. If you are one of the users who think your Windows 8.1 installation is having some problems then, you may use the refresh option to refresh your PC without losing files.
 
Follow the instructions below to refresh your Windows 8.1 installation.
 
Instructions:
 
If you installed your Windows 8.1 from a Windows 8.1 DVD or your PC came with Windows 8.1 pre-installed then, you may follow the method 1. But, for those who upgraded their Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 from Store or alternate upgrade method will have to follow method 2.
 
First things first:
 
It is recommended that you make a backup of all your important data and files before proceeding further. Always...Better safe than sorry!
 
Method 1:
 
Note: You will need the Windows 8.1 DVD if, you installed your Windows from it.

 • If you installed Windows 8.1 from a retail DVD then, swipe from right and select ‘Settings’ or press ‘Windows key + I’.
 
 • Your Settings Charm will open. Here select ‘Change PC Settings’ from bottom.



 • Your ‘PC Settings’ will open. Here select ‘Update and recovery’ from the left column.
 
 • Once in ‘Update and Recovery’ section, press ‘Recovery’.
 
 • You would be showed the recovery options of Windows in the right column. Here press ‘Get Started’ button under the ‘Refresh your OS without affecting your files’.



 • Windows will prepare your PC and after few seconds, you would either be showed;

 • Insert the installation media
 
 • Here’s what will happen > Skip the next step

Note: If Windows asks for your installation media then, you may insert the DVD which you used to install.
 
Note: You won’t be asked to provide an installation media if, Windows 8.1 came pre-installed on your PC.

 • Once you have inserted your media, you will also be showed ‘Here’s what will happen’.
 
 • Here you will be shown that; your files, apps, settings and other things won’t be removed. Press ‘Next’.
 
 • You would be told that Windows is ‘Ready to refresh your PC’. Press ‘Refresh’ button.
 
 • Now, your Windows will restart and proceed with the refresh procedure. First you would be showed the refreshing screen with Windows logo followed by setting things up.
 
 • In the last, after a wait of few minutes, you would be taken to your sign-in screen where Windows will ask you to sign-in using your Microsoft or local account.
 
 • Once you sign-in, your files, apps and settings would be there but, you Windows has been refreshed.

 • Done

Method 2:

If you are one of the people like me who upgraded your Windows 8 installation to Windows 8.1 from Store or by using an alternate method then, you might have to follow a long and time consuming procedure to refresh your PC.
 
But, don’t worry, you will still be able to refresh your Windows 8.1 installation by keeping apps, files and settings.
 
What will happen:
 
Since you upgraded your Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 from Windows Store or other method so, you won’t have the installation media to initiate the refresh process. But, we will be using an alternate method to refresh your Windows 8.1 using your installed source. Sounds awkward? It isn’t! We will be creating a custom refresh image from your installed Windows 8.1 which will then be used to refresh your Windows 8.1 installation.
 
Note: You will need to have at-least 35GB of free storage on your C: drive to complete the refresh procedure
 
 • First of all, open up the Search Charm by swiping from right and selecting ‘Search’ or by pressing ‘Windows key + S’.
 
 • Your Search Charm will open. Here type ‘cmd’.
 
 • Command Prompt will be showed in results. Right click it or long tap on it to open context menu. Here select ‘Run as administrator’.
 
 • Windows will ask for your permission to let this program make changes to your PC. Press ‘Yes’.
 
 • Command Prompt will open on desktop. Here type the following and/or paste the following by right clicking or long tapping on command prompt and selecting ‘Paste’.
 

mkdir C:\RefreshImage

Note: This above command will create a folder in the root of ‘C:’ drive where the custom refresh image would be saved in later steps.
 
Tip: You can change the location of this drive to anywhere in your PC but, it must be present on your Hard drive.
 
 • Press ‘Enter’ to initiate the command.
 
 • Now, enter the following command:
 

recimg -CreateImage C:\RefreshImage

• Press ‘Enter’ to start the refresh image creation process.



 • First Windows will create a snapshot which will take few seconds to complete. Then comes the long, time consuming part. Windows will start writing the image which might take a long time (it took 2 hours to complete for me). In the end, Windows will register the image which will also take few seconds.
 
 • Once completed, you would be showed that ‘Recovery image creating and registration completed successfully’. We are done in command prompt, you may close it.



 • Now, let’s start the refresh procedure.
 
 • Swipe from right and select ‘Settings’ or press ‘Windows key + I’.
 
 • Your Settings Charm will open. Here select ‘Change PC Settings’.



 • Your ‘PC Settings’ will open. Here select ‘Update and recovery’ from the left column.
 
 • Once in ‘Update and Recovery’ section, press ‘Recovery’.
 
 • You would be showed the recovery options of Windows in the right column. Here press ‘Get Started’ button under the ‘Refresh your PC without affecting your files’.



 • Windows will prepare your PC and after few seconds, you would either be showed ‘Here’s what will happen’ where the apps and settings would be kept but, the desktop programs and PC Settings won’t. But, don’t worry! You will be able to keep everything if, you followed the above steps correctly and created recovery image.
 
 • Press ‘Next’.
 
 • You would be told that Windows is ‘Ready to refresh your PC’. Press ‘the Refresh’ button.
 
 • Now, your Windows will restart and proceed with the refresh procedure. First you would be showed the refreshing screen with Windows logo followed by settings things up.
 
 • In the last, after a wait of few minutes, you would be taken to your sign-in screen where Windows will ask to sign-in using your Microsoft or local account.
 
 • Once you sign-in, your files, apps and settings would be there but, you Windows has been refreshed.
 
 • That’s all!

courtesy:windows8core