Former CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He managed CNET's San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D ...

Windows 11 might be the latest version of Windows, but if you still use Windows 10 and need to "clean install" the operating system, or install or upgrade to it for the first time on an older PC, ...

This article, updated to reflect Windows 10 version 2004 (aka May 2020 Update), covers the most common scenarios you're likely to encounter when installing, reinstalling, and activating Windows 10. Is ...

Why does the Windows install get stuck? It’s hard to say accurately, but most of the time, it’s because it’s waiting for something so it can move into the next stage of installation. Sometimes it’s an ...

Reinstalling Windows 10 or 11 over itself is an easy and surprisingly effective way to fix all kinds of problems with the OS. Here’s how. Sometimes a Windows installation simply goes off the rails.

If you plan to clean install Windows 10 on your Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 computer, then the way to do it is to first upgrade your Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 to Windows 10, ensure that your upgraded ...

One key technique in the Windows repair playbook involves wiping out everything on the storage device (typically C:\) from which Windows boots and on which that OS resides. Prosaically enough, this ...

Windows 10 is an unusual release for Microsoft: if you have a licensed version of Windows 7 or 8/8.1, it will very easily upgrade to Windows 10—you don’t even need to enter a licence key. Clean ...