Overview / Windows

Reinstall Windows 11

A clean install from a USB drive, in ten steps. Every menu name below is the literal string Windows 11 shows on screen, and the two places where widely-copied advice is now wrong are called out rather than repeated.

10 steps45–90 minutesWindows 11Official sources only

01Pick the right method

“Reinstall Windows” describes three different operations, and they erase wildly different amounts of your machine. Choosing the wrong one is how people lose a drive they did not mean to wipe.

Reset this PC
SettingsSystemRecoveryReset this PC

Built in, no USB stick, no download. You are offered Keep my files (Windows is reinstalled, your documents survive, your installed programs do not) or Remove everything.

Use it when: Windows still boots but is misbehaving.
Repair install, also called an in-place upgrade
Download the Windows 11 ISO, mount it, and run setup.exe from inside the working Windows. When asked what to keep, choose Keep personal files and apps.

Use it when: a system component is broken and you would rather not reinstall every program afterwards. This is the only method here that preserves your installed software.
Clean install from a USB drive
Erases the system drive and lays down Windows from scratch. This is what the rest of this page walks through.

Use it when: the machine will not boot, you are moving to a new SSD, the reset failed, or you are the new owner of a used PC. Also the only option if you want to change the partition layout.

What is not on that list

Any third-party “one-click reinstall” or “system master” utility. These bundle a Windows image you did not choose and cannot verify, plus drivers and preinstalled software of unknown origin. Windows ships with everything you need for all three methods above. There is no gap in Microsoft's tooling that a third-party reinstaller fills.

Windows 10 reached end of support on 14 October 2025

It no longer receives security updates. If you are reinstalling anything that can run Windows 11, install Windows 11. Check your machine against the Windows 11 device specifications first — Windows 11 needs TPM 2.0, UEFI Secure Boot, 4 GB of RAM and a 64 GB drive.

02Before you start

Gather these first. Discovering you are missing one of them halfway through means stopping with your machine in an unbootable state.

A USB flash drive of 8 GB or larger. Windows 11 media needs about 6 GB; 8 GB is the practical floor. USB 3.0 or better is worth it — the same 5 GB takes a few minutes instead of twenty. Every byte on it will be destroyed.
A backup you have actually opened. Not one you made — one you restored a file from. A backup that has never been tested is a hope, and the clean install will not warn you a second time.
Your Microsoft account password, or your 25-character product key. Modern PCs store the key in firmware and reactivate themselves; the account is the fallback. Sign in to Windows with a Microsoft account before you start if you are not already — it is what links the digital licence to something recoverable.
A second computer with internet access, if the machine you are reinstalling is the one that will not boot. You need it to download the image and to read this page.
The Wi-Fi driver for your laptop, saved to the USB stick alongside the installer. Windows 11 carries no Wi-Fi driver for some newer adapters, and without a network connection Setup cannot reach Windows Update to fetch one. This single oversight strands more clean installs than anything else on this page.
Time. Ninety minutes to two hours for a clean install plus updates, on an average connection.

Write down your BitLocker recovery key now

If the drive is encrypted and you clean-install without it, the data on that drive is gone permanently — no recovery service will help. Look it up at aka.ms/myrecoverykey while Windows still runs, and note that this is the recovery key (48 digits, in groups of six), not your Windows password.

03Get the official installer

There is exactly one place to get Windows: Microsoft. Everything else is a re-upload, and you have no way to tell a faithful copy from a modified one.

Open the Download Windows 11 page. It offers three options, and they are not interchangeable:

Option on the page	What it does	Use it when
Windows 11 Installation Assistant	Upgrades the PC you are sitting at, in place. No USB needed.	Windows runs and you only want the upgrade.
Create Windows 11 Installation Media	Downloads the Media Creation Tool, which writes a bootable USB directly.	This is the one you want for a clean install.
Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)	Gives you the raw `.iso` file — about 5.5 GB.	You want to keep the image, use Rufus or Ventoy, or make the USB from a Mac or Linux machine.

The ISO download page deliberately hides its version selector

Microsoft shows the direct ISO links only to browsers it does not recognise. If you are on Windows and see a media-creation tool where you expected ISO links, switch your browser's user-agent or the page's language selector — the “Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices” section is there, at the bottom of the page.

Still on Windows 10 for compatibility reasons? The Windows 10 download page still exists, but Microsoft has ended support for it and will not publish new fixes.

04Make the installation USB

Three ways, in order of how much you want to think about it.

Option A — Microsoft's Media Creation Tool

The fewest decisions and the least to get wrong. Run MediaCreationTool_W11.exe, accept the licence, and choose Create installation media for another PC. Pick language and edition, choose USB flash drive, select your stick, and leave it alone for ten to thirty minutes.

One limitation worth knowing: the tool refuses to run on ARM-based PCs and will not create ARM media. If you are reinstalling a Surface Pro X or any Snapdragon laptop, use the ISO route.

Option B — Rufus

More control, and the right choice when you need to work around a partition style or want a specific edition. Get it from rufus.ie — the portable build needs no installation.

With a USB stick inserted:

Device — your stick. Check the size matches, because the next step erases it.
Boot selection → SELECT — point it at the .iso you downloaded.
Image option — leave as Standard Windows installation.
Partition scheme — GPT for any PC made after roughly 2012, MBR only for older machines.
Target system — UEFI (non CSM). This must match the partition scheme: GPT with UEFI, MBR with BIOS.
File system — NTFS. install.wim exceeds the 4 GB file limit of FAT32, and NTFS avoids the split.
START → accept the two warnings.

Option C — Ventoy

Worth it if you reinstall machines often. Ventoy installs a bootloader once, after which you copy ISO files onto the stick like ordinary files and pick one from a boot menu. Install Ventoy to the drive, then drag the ISO across. No reflashing when the ISO changes.

Before you press start

The drive is erased, not formatted — partitions and all. Move anything you want off it first. And use a rear USB port on a desktop: front-panel ports occasionally fail to enumerate during boot, which looks exactly like a broken USB stick.

A 32 GB stick on a USB 3 port finishes in about five minutes. If it has been twenty and the progress bar has not moved, stop and start again with a different stick rather than waiting it out.

05Boot from the USB drive

You want the one-time boot menu, not the BIOS boot order. The boot menu changes nothing permanently: you pick a device, it boots once, and the next restart goes back to normal. Editing the boot order in BIOS is the harder way to do the same thing, and easy to forget to undo.

Restart the machine and tap the boot-menu key repeatedly as soon as the manufacturer logo appears — not before, and not for long. It is a rhythm, not a hold.

Brand	Boot menu	BIOS setup
Acer	`F12`	`F2` or `Del`
ASUS	`Esc` or `F8`	`F2` or `Del`
Dell	`F12`	`F2`
HP	`F9`	`F10`
Lenovo IdeaPad / Legion	`F12` or `FnF12`	`F2`
Lenovo ThinkPad	`F12`	`F1`
MSI	`F11`	`Del`
Samsung	`F10` or `Esc`	`F2`
Microsoft Surface	Hold `Volume Down` while pressing power	`Volume Up` + power

Keys vary within a brand and change between generations, so treat the table as a first guess. If a key does nothing, the machine may have Fast Startup enabled, which skips the window entirely. Disable it from inside Windows first: Control PanelHardware and SoundPower OptionsChoose what the power buttons doChange settings that are currently unavailable, then clear Turn on fast startup.

If the USB still will not boot

The stick appears but will not start. The stick's partition scheme does not match the firmware mode. Rebuild it as GPT for UEFI machines, MBR for legacy BIOS ones. This mismatch is the most common cause.
The stick does not appear at all. Enter BIOS setup and confirm the drive is listed under Boot. If it is absent from the device list too, the firmware is not seeing it — try another port and another stick.
Boot mode is set to Legacy or CSM. Change it to UEFI. Windows 11 will not install otherwise.

Leave Secure Boot alone

Plenty of older guides tell you to switch off Secure Boot in BIOS. Do not. Windows 11 requires it — the installer will refuse to continue, or will apply a confusing set of workarounds, if it is off. Secure Boot has not been a boot-blocker for legitimate Windows media for years. The only reason to disable it is if you have narrowed the problem down to a third-party bootloader, and then you should turn it straight back on.

If you did change BIOS settings, exit with F10 and confirm Yes — on most firmware that is the save-and-exit key. Windows Setup loads when you see the four-pane blue window.

06Run Windows Setup

Use the on-screen names below; they are quoted exactly as Setup prints them.

Set Language to install, Time and currency format and Keyboard or input method, then choose Next → Install now.
If asked for a product key, choose I don't have a product key. A machine that came with Windows has its licence in firmware and will activate itself once it is online. Entering a key here is not required and does not affect activation later.
Select the edition. Match the edition you actually own — a Home digital licence will not activate a Pro installation, and the mismatch only surfaces after the install finishes.
Accept the licence terms, then choose Custom: Install Windows only (advanced). Ignore Upgrade: Install Windows and keep files, settings, and applications — that option only works when launched from inside a running Windows.

The next screen destroys data

“Where do you want to install Windows?” shows every partition on every attached drive. Deleting partitions here is immediate and unrecoverable. If you have a second drive with files on it, unplug it before you reach this screen — that is the only reliable protection, because the list looks the same whether or not you have read it carefully.

Partitioning

Select each existing partition and choose Delete until only Unallocated Space remains, then select it and choose New → Apply → OK. Let Setup create its own partitions: it makes the EFI System, Microsoft Reserved, MSR and primary partitions in the layout Windows expects. Creating them by hand commonly produces a system that boots but cannot receive feature updates.

For the size, accept the default unless you have a reason not to. Setup proposes the whole free area, which is usually right. If you need a second partition, shrink the primary now — resizing later means shrinking from inside Windows, which cannot move immovable files and often cannot free as much as you asked. Windows 11 itself wants about 40 GB; below 100 GB you will be managing free space within a year.

Select Next and Setup copies files, then restarts several times by itself. Do not interrupt the power at any point, including the moments when the screen goes black for a minute or more during Getting devices ready. The first reboot is a good moment to unplug the USB stick, if you want to be certain it does not boot back into Setup.

07Drivers and updates

Windows 11 arrives with working generic drivers for almost everything, which is why the machine looks fine and then disappoints you a week later. Two different things to deal with.

Let Windows Update do the easy half

Connect to the network, then run Windows Update until it stops offering things, rebooting as asked. The drivers most people are missing are hidden one level down: open SettingsWindows UpdateAdvanced optionsOptional updates and expand Driver updates. These are hardware drivers Microsoft has signed but does not push automatically, and this is where a laptop's function keys or a printer's scanner half lives.

Install the rest from the vendor

For anything still flagged in Device Manager (right-click Start → Device Manager; a yellow triangle means a missing driver), go upstream:

Chipset, audio, network, card readers — the PC or motherboard maker's own support page, matched to your exact model. This is the one place where the manufacturer's often-older driver is genuinely better than a newer generic one.
Graphics — Intel, AMD or NVIDIA directly, not the PC maker's page. Laptop manufacturers typically stop updating graphics drivers within a year or two; the chip vendors keep going for years.

You probably do not need a driver updater

Utilities that scan for and install drivers on your behalf are among the most common sources of unwanted bundled software, and they have no source of drivers that you do not have. The two steps above cover the entire job.

08Activation, the legitimate way

Open SettingsSystemActivation and read the status line. Four outcomes, four different fixes.

What it says	What to do
Windows is activated	Nothing. A digital licence stored against the hardware reactivated itself as soon as you connected.
Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account	Nothing, and you are in the best position of anyone reading this page. The licence survives a motherboard replacement.
Windows is not activated, and you had a licence before	Select Add an account and sign in with the Microsoft account the licence is attached to. See Microsoft's guide on adding your Microsoft account to your digital licence. If the hardware changed, run Troubleshoot → I changed hardware on this device recently.
Windows is not activated, and there was never a licence	Buy one. Go to Store in the same panel, or a retail key from any authorised reseller.

More detail, including error-code specific paths, is in Microsoft's Activate Windows support article.

Do not use a KMS activator, however well reviewed it is

Activation scripts and “digital licence” tools are widely recommended, easy to find, and a bad trade. They work by patching system components and installing a service that impersonates a corporate key server, which means: Windows Defender flags them and removes them on the next update, breaking activation again; the file integrity checks that BitLocker and Secure Boot depend on are no longer trustworthy; and the executables are the single most reliable way to end up with a persistent infostealer, since the people who crack activation also know exactly who downloads cracks. A retail Windows 11 Home licence costs less than a takeaway meal, and it is the only version of this that still works in two years.

Legitimate ways to pay less

Microsoft sells deeply discounted licences through education institutions, and many employers' Microsoft 365 subscriptions include a Windows upgrade. Students should check their school's software portal before buying retail. For evaluation and testing, Microsoft gives away full Windows 11 Enterprise evaluation images that run for 90 days — legitimately, from Microsoft's own servers.

09The first ten minutes

What you do now determines whether this install is still healthy in a year.

Check activation and Windows Update one more time. Update immediately, and again after each reboot, until it reports nothing pending. A freshly installed machine is several gigabytes of updates behind.
Turn on encryption. SettingsPrivacy & securityDevice encryption. On a modern machine with a TPM this is a single switch, and it is the only thing that makes a stolen laptop's contents useless to whoever has it. Store the recovery key somewhere other than on this machine.
Remove what you did not ask for. SettingsAppsInstalled apps. Vendor-supplied PCs arrive with a startling amount of this. It is safe to remove — anything load-bearing is hidden from this list.
Cut the startup list. SettingsAppsStartup, or CtrlShiftEsc → Startup apps. Turn off everything you do not specifically want running when you log in. This is the single highest-yield performance change available on a new install.
Create a restore point. Search Create a restore point from the Start menu, select your system drive, and choose Create. Ten seconds now buys you a rollback later. Turn on System protection while you are there.
Install your software — and this is the part InstallShelf exists for. It is the same idea as this site: one page, every link pointing at the publisher's own download server.

Then stop

A clean install has a cost beyond the ninety minutes: every program you reinstall is a choice, and the defaults are the thing that made the last install slow. Install what you actually use this week, not everything you had before. It is much easier to add a program later than to notice you have forty-six startup entries again.

10When something goes wrong

The failures below account for most of what actually goes wrong. For anything more specific, Microsoft publishes known-issue status per release at Windows release health — worth checking before you reinstall, since a botched update is occasionally the entire problem and no amount of reinstalling will fix it.

“Windows cannot be installed to this disk”

A partition style mismatch: Setup is booted in UEFI mode but the disk is partitioned as MBR, or the reverse. At the partition screen press ShiftF10 to open a command prompt and convert the disk.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
exit

The clean command wipes the selected disk completely — confirm the disk number against the size in list disk before you run it, especially on a machine with more than one drive. Then close the prompt and choose Refresh in Setup.

Setup cannot see the SSD at all

Common on recent Intel laptops, where the drive sits behind Intel Volume Management Device. Two ways out: put the Intel RST or VMD driver on a second USB stick and choose Load driver at the partition screen, or enter BIOS setup and disable VMD (sometimes under AdvancedVMD setup menu) before booting the installer again. Disabling it after Windows is installed is the harder route, so decide now.

The machine boots to a black screen or straight back into Setup

Unplug the USB stick and restart. If it then boots, the firmware boot order is still pointing at removable media — harmless, but worth correcting.

No Wi-Fi after the install

This is the driver you were warned about in the checklist. Connect by Ethernet or a phone's USB tethering long enough for Windows Update to install the adapter driver. On a laptop with neither, install the vendor's Wi-Fi driver from the USB stick with Device Manager → right-click the unknown device → Update driver → Browse my computer for drivers.

Everything is unactivated and the troubleshooter fails

Check the edition matches your licence, that you are signed in with the same Microsoft account that held it, and that you have not exceeded the number of reactivations Microsoft permits. Anything past that needs Microsoft support, not another reinstall.