Refresh your PC on Windows 8 or 8.1 to reinstall Windows only (without deleting your documents)

3. Refresh your PC

Once the PC refresh has started (via one of the methods explained previously), the PC on Windows 8 / 8.1 will restart.

A "Preparing to refresh your PC" message will be displayed during the restart.

Then, several different messages depending on the progress of the update of your PC :

• Refreshing your PC
• Preparing
• Preparing devices
• Welcome !
• Additional configuration tasks

The last step will be the installation of applications from the Windows Store.

And you're back in Windows 8 / 8.1.
A few seconds later, you should see a "Deleted applications" shortcut appear on your desktop.

If you double click on it, you will see a web page listing the apps that were removed while restoring your PC performance (that is : refreshing your PC).

When you refresh your PC, the old Windows installation will be moved to a "Windows.old" folder.

As you can see, you will find all the folders that were previously in : C:\Windows.

In the event that you have lost data, you may find it in this folder : C:\Windows.old\Users\[Desired user name].