Help and Recovery

Windows 11 provides several useful help and recovery tools, including a few new entries from the past year thanks to Microsoft’s Windows Resiliency Initiative. These tools let you get help from a person you know and trust, help others with the problems they are experiencing, launch into a Windows Recovery Environment that’s accessible inside and outside of Windows 11, restore the PC to a previous state or reinstall Windows quickly using Windows Update if something goes wrong, and reset the PC and start over with a fresh install of Windows 11.

Quick assist

Windows 11 includes a remote assistance app called Quick Assist that helps a user having issues–the sharer–share their screen interactively with another user–the helper–so that the latter can troubleshoot and help them solve those problems.

Tip: Obviously, both PCs need to be connected to the Internet. Less obviously, the helper needs to use a Microsoft account, while the sharer does not.

To get started, both parties should be in communication with each other using their phones or some other means. Then, both should open Quick Assist in Windows 11 on their PCs. The helper will click “Help someone.” If this is the first time they’ve used Quick Assist, they will be asked to sign in to their Microsoft account. Otherwise, Quick Assist will generate a short security code that the helper can give to the sharer.

Tip: The security code expires in 10 minutes. The helper will see a countdown in Quick Assist, and a new code will be generated every 10 minutes.

Now, the sharer can enter the security code in Quick Assist under “Get help” and begin the quick assistance session.

Once the connection is made, both people will see Quick Assist a bit differently. On the sharer’s screen, it’s a pane-like window at the top of the screen they can minimize. On the helper’s screen, Quick Assist displays options–like a “Request control” button–and a resizable remote view of the sharer’s screen while the two discuss the problem.

What you do here is based on the type of help being provided and whether the sharer is technical enough to take the troubleshooting steps given by the helper. If the helper is more technical than the sharer and would like to simply solve the problem, they can ask for permission to take control of the screen so that they can interact with the sharer’s PC remotely.

Tip: The most important thing to remember here is that the sharer is always in control: They can easily disconnect the helper at any time. So there’s little to fear from giving someone–especially someone you know and trust–full control of your PC.

On the sharer’s PC, the Desktop has a yellow border as a visual cue.

To disconnect the remote connection at any time, restore the Quick Assist window if needed and click the “Leave” button.

Control a sharer’s PC

When the helper remotely controls the sharer’s computer, they can also access several capabilities in Quick Assist using the buttons in the toolbar. Some of the more useful options here include:

• Annotate. Click this button to enter Annotation mode, which lets the helper write or draw on the sharer’s screen in one of six colors or erase any annotations. This can be useful to visually circle an on-screen item, perhaps. And annotations are not permanent, of course: They disappear when the helper closes Annotation mode.

• Select screen. Quick Assist can only display one remote screen at a time. If the sharer has multiple monitors, this button can be used to switch between them.
• Actual size/Fit screen. By default, Quick Assist shrinks down the sharer’s Desktop so that it will fit inside its window. But you can toggle the display to “Actual size,” which will cause the remote Desktop to zoom in to some degree.
• Chat. This button opens (or closes) a Chat panel in which the sharer and the helper can exchange text messages. (Either party can start communicating this way.)
• Restart & reconnect. This button will reboot the sharer’s PC remotely. There’s a 30-second delay so that the sharer can agree to reboot or cancel it.

Tip: After the sharer’s PC reboots and they have signed back into Windows, Quick Assist will run automatically and the connection between the two PCs will be restored.

• Task Manager. This button launches Task Manager on the sharer’s PC.
• Pause. Here, you can pause the quick assistance session, during which time the helper can no longer see the remote Desktop. (Either party can pause the session.)
• Leave. Click this button to end the quick assistance session.

Control a computer you’re sharing

The sharer has fewer controls, but they can cancel control, open the Chat pane, pause the quick assistance session, or leave Quick Assist. This is all straightforward, though the Quick Assist window may be minimized to the Taskbar, so you need to know how to restore it to access its controls.

Troubleshooting

Windows 11 will try to automatically fix problems that occur on your PC. But when it cannot do so, its Troubleshooting platform will often present a troubleshooter, a built-in utility that will try to help you fix the issue. You can also manually access any of the available troubleshooters at any time.

Configure troubleshooting

By default, Windows 11 will ask whether you’d like to run a troubleshooter when an issue occurs. But you can configure this behavior.

To do so, open the Settings app and navigate to System > Troubleshoot.

There, you find just a few options.

• Share diagnostic data to get additional troubleshooting recommendations. This is a bold attempt to get you to agree to open up the telemetry data firehose. Do not do this.

Tip: If you do click through an enable the sending of optional diagnostic data, you can reverse it later. Open Settings, navigate to Privacy & security > Diagnostics and feedback, and configure “Send optional diagnostic data” to “Off.”

• Recommend troubleshooter preferences. This is set to “Ask before running” by default. You can optionally configure it to “Run automatically, don’t notify me” or “Run automatically, then notify me” if you prefer. I never found a reason to make a change here, but if you’re having repeated issues with Windows 11, it may be worth using one of the “Run automatically” configurations.

And that’s it. The other two items you see here are tied to using the troubleshooters, not configuring them.

Find and run a troubleshooter

If Windows 11 hasn’t asked you to run a troubleshooter when something goes wrong, you can find and run it manually.

To do so, open the Settings app and navigate to System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters.

Here, you will find two lists of troubleshooters, “Most frequent” and “Other,” which is obvious enough: Audio, Network and Internet, Printer, and Windows Update are the most commonly needed troubleshooters, but there are many others found under “Other.”

Troubleshooters work the same no matter how they’re triggered: Each has a set of conditions and diagnostics it can run, and it will step through each in turn, prompting you when possible to try different things. And each has links to contact support and find specific Microsoft Support articles. What differs is the details. Because of the specific nature of each troubleshooter, each has a different series of steps to perform.

Here, I will examine two of the more common needs for this feature.

Troubleshoot your Internet connection

This is perhaps the most common issue: You try to visit a website, check your email, or perform a similar task that requires connectivity and it fails. What gives?

If this happens with Microsoft Edge, the browser will provide some recommended troubleshooting steps and provide a link for running “Windows Network Diagnostics,” which is just a restyled version of the Internet Connections troubleshooter. Otherwise, you can run the troubleshooter manually in Other troubleshooters settings: Just select the “Run” button next to “Network and Internet.”

When you do, the Get Help app appears and runs a troubleshooter that examines your connectivity and steps through a series of recommended solutions ranging from the obvious–turn on your Wi-Fi adapter–to more aggressive steps, like rebooting the PC and resetting the network adapter. At each step, it will offer to run network tests to determine your connectivity, but this one is usually pretty obvious when it’s working. There’s also a QR-based link to visit Microsoft Support on another device that presumably does have Internet connectivity.

Troubleshoot Windows Update

Microsoft designed Windows 11 to download and install software updates in the background, and Windows Update is the primary interface for this functionality. Many users will let Windows Update do its thing and reboot the PC as prompted. But more experienced users will often check Windows Updates for updates manually. And, in doing so, they will sometimes experience issues in which an update seems to get “stuck” and never complete successfully.

These and other similar updating issues can be fixed with the Windows Update troubleshooter, which is found in Other troubleshooters: Just select the “Run” button next to Windows Update.

As with other troubleshooters, the Get Help app appears. But this one asks you about the type of problem you’re experiencing–it could be an issue downloading, installing, or uninstalling an update or an installed update that is causing problems–and then follows up with a request to run an automated diagnostic. If it finds the problem, it will try to fix it automatically and then prompt you to see whether that worked. If it didn’t work, the troubleshooter will continue and try other fixes.

Recovery drive

Before getting started with any of the Windows 11 recovery tools described below, you should consider creating a USB-based recovery drive that can be used to boot your PC into the Windows Recovery Environment. This is important because it can be used when your PC isn’t booting normally, or at all.

To get started, you need a USB flash drive, though the size will vary depending on which method you choose. There are two choices:

• Recovery drive. Using the Recovery drive utility in Windows 11, you can create a bootable USB-based recovery drive. This method requires a drive with at least 32 GB of storage and the resulting drive isn’t particularly versatile.
• Windows 11 installation media. You can use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool or a third-party utility like Rufus to create bootable USB-based Windows 11 installation media that can be used like a recovery drive or to install Windows 11. This method also requires you to download a Windows 11 ISO file, but you only need an 8 GB USB drive.

Given the above, I strongly recommend creating and using Windows 11 installation media for recovery purposes.

Create and use a standalone recovery drive

If you just want to create a recovery drive, it’s simple enough: Find the Recovery Drive utility using Start Search, make sure the “Back up system files to the recovery drive” is checked, insert your flash drive, and let the wizard do its thing.

To use the recovery drive, you have to reboot the PC and somehow interrupt the normal boot process so that it boots from USB instead of the system drive. How you do so will vary by PC. But when you do boot with the recovery drive, a blue Windows Recovery Environment screen titled “Choose an option” appears. Click “Troubleshoot” to view the available repair and recovery tools or “Recover from a drive” to reinstall Windows 11 using the recovery drive

Use Windows 11 installation media as a recovery drive

I describe how to create Windows 11 installation media in the Install chapter. Using this drive is similar to using a standalone recovery drive, but there are a few additional steps: When the PC boots, Windows Setup appears. Click through the first two steps in this wizard–“Select language settings” and “Select keyboard settings”–to arrive at the “Select setup options” screen.

Here, select “Repair your computer” and then click “Next.” Choose the correct keyboard layout in the next screen and then choose “Troubleshoot” in the “Choose an option” screen that appears. In the “Advanced options” screen that appears, you can select between various recovery options.

Quick Machine Recovery

Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) is a new Windows 11 recovery option that enables your PC to automatically recover from critical issues that previously would have prevented it from successfully booting. This can save a lot of time that would otherwise be spent troubleshooting the problem yourself.

How it works

Quick Machine Recovery automatically detects when your PC repeatedly fails to boot into Windows successfully, and it boots into the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE) instead, establishes a Wi-Fi or Ethernet network connection, and scans Windows Update to see whether there is a fix for the issue your PC is experiencing.

If a fix is available, Quick Machine Recovery downloads and installs it and reboots the PC.

If there’s no fix, Windows will attempt to boot into the Desktop.

Tip: If the PC can’t connect to the Internet, Quick Machine Recovery will fall back to Startup Repair, a recovery tool available in the WRE.

Tip: You can also access QMR directly from the Windows Recovery Environment. To do so, enter the WRE and navigate to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Quick machine recovery.

Defaults

Quick Machine Recovery is enabled by default for individuals, and it is configured as described below.

Customize

For the most part, Quick Machine Recovery is something you don’t need to think about. But you can review how it’s configured using the Settings app by navigating to System > Recovery > Quick machine recovery and optionally making any changes you feel are necessary.

Keyboard shortcut: Type Windows key + I to open Settings.

Here, you will find the following options.

Quick machine recovery. If you wish to disable Quick Machine Recovery for some reason, configure this to “Off.”

Tip: Leave this one alone. Hopefully, you never need Quick Machine Recovery, but you will be happy to have it if it’s ever needed.

Look for solutions. This option is configured to look for a solution once by default. But you can choose to have Quick Machine Recovery check for a solution every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 6 hours, or 12 hours if desired.

Test that Quick Machine Recovery is working

It’s rare to find yourself in a situation in which your PC can’t boot successfully into Windows 11, so it’s unlikely that you’ll ever experience Quick Machine Recovery. But you can simulate a boot issue with your PC and verify that this feature is working correctly.

To do so, run the Terminal app with administrator privileges and type the following commands one at a time (tapping Enter after each) to enable QMR’s test mode and then configure Windows to boot into the Windows Recovery Environment:

reagentc.exe /SetRecoveryTestmode
reagentc.exe /BootToRe

Then, reboot the PC. It will boot into a recovery mode in which it first tries to connect to the Internet; if you’re using Wi-Fi, you will need to select the network and enter its password when prompted. Then, QMR will look for solutions to this imagined problem, find one, and then attempt to repair the boot process. Since this is a test, that will always work, and then Windows 11 will boot normally, and you can sign-in when the Lock screen appears.

Point-in-time restore

Point-in-time restore is a new system recovery utility that helps you quickly return your PC to previous state. To do this, it automatically creates and stores a restore point on your PC every 24 hours that include the system state, all installed apps, configured settings, and all user data. Then, it continues making new restore points each day. When a restore point is 72 hours older or older, it is deleted automatically. And if total restore point storage exceeds a limit you can configure, Point-in-time restore will simply overwrite the oldest restore point with the newest one.

Tip: Yes, this is a modern replacement for the legacy System Restore feature, one that has several advantages over its predecessor. Key among them, it’s automatic, includes your documents and other user data, and it minimizes disk space usage.

Configure Point-in-time restore

Point-in-time restore is enabled by default and it supports just a few configurable options for individuals using Windows 11. To see what’s available, open Settings and navigate to System Recovery. There, you will find a “Point-in-time restore” option with a “View or edit” button you can click to see its options (after dealing with a User Account Control dialog).

There’s not much, but you can configure:

Point-in-time restore. This toggle determines whether this feature is enabled or not. Leave it on.

Max usage. By default, Point-in-time restore uses 2 percent of your disk space to store its restore points. You can configure a different amount of storage using this slider with a 2 GB minimum and a 50 GB maximum.

That’s it. The automatic restore point storage frequency and retention time frame can’t be changed in any way. You can also can’t manually create a restore point arbitrarily.

Restore your PC to a previous state

Oddly, you cannot restore your PC to a previous state from within Windows 11. Instead, you have to reboot into the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE) and trigger a restore from there. As inconvenient, you will also need to find the BitLocker recovery key for this computer.

Learn more: You can learn how to find this recovery key in the Device Encryption chapter.

To restore your PC to a previous state, close all running apps, open Settings, and navigate to System > Recovery. Click the “Restart now” button next to “Advanced startup” then click “Restart now.” The PC will reboot into the WRE.

Click “Troubleshoot.” Then, in the “Troubleshoot” screen that appears, click “Point-in-time restore.” Here, laboriously enter the 48-character recovery key and click “Continue.”

In the next screen, you select a restore point–typically the most recent one–and then click “Continue.” After reviewing the restore point and the warning about data loss, click “Restore” to restore the PC to the point in time when that restore point was created. The PC will reboot into Windows 11 normally when this is done.

Tip: The only data loss risk is that Point-in-time restore cannot restore files that were stored or modified locally after the restore point you choose. But this assumes those files aren’t in cloud storage. If newer files are stored in OneDrive or some other service, they will still be present after you restore the PC.

Reinstall Windows with Windows Update

Reinstall Windows with Windows Update is a new system recovery utility that’s less destructive than Reset This PC. It works similarly to the refresh options in Reset this PC, but it retains all the apps you’ve installed, including those you acquired from the web. If the goal is to fix problems with Windows while retaining your user account, data, settings, and apps, this should be the first thing you try.

Locate Reinstall Windows using Windows Update in Settings

As with Reset this PC, this feature is found in Recovery settings in the Settings app. This is the rare instance in which using the “Find a setting” box in Settings comes up short if you just use the feature’s name. But you can find it by navigating to System > Recovery. It’s at the top, where it’s called Fix problems using Windows Update.

Tip: You should install any pending Windows Updates before using this repair feature.

Reinstall Windows using Windows Update

To get started, click the “Reinstall now” button next to “Fix problems with Windows Update.” The “Fix problems with Windows Update” window appears, providing a simple wizard-based interface for completing this task.

Tip: Be sure to plug the computer into power as advised here.

After optionally selecting “Automatically restart my PC 15 minutes after installation,” click “OK” to continue. Settings will navigate to the Windows Update settings page and check for updates. It’s looking for a specific update, the repair version of Windows 11.

When Windows Update finishes downloading this file–it could take 20 to 30 minutes, depending on your Internet connection speed–it will prompt you to restart. If needed, close any open apps and windows, and then click “Restart now.” Windows Setup will run between reboots, while Windows is offline and unavailable, and will reinstall the OS. After the final reboot–this process takes about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the PC–you will be prompted to sign in normally, and you will go directly to the Desktop, as is normally the case.

And that’s it. If this didn’t solve a problem you’re experiencing, you will need to call in the big guns, meaning Reset this PC. It’s possible a full reinstallation–a reset–is required.

Reset This PC

Reset this PC is a system restore tool that helps you quickly reinstall Windows 11 and return it to a pristine, error-free state similar to how it was the first time you turned it on. You can do so in two ways: a refresh, in which Windows 11 is reinstalled but you keep your existing Microsoft account, its personal files, and any installed Microsoft Store apps, or a reset, in which Windows 11 is reinstalled and behaves as if used on a new PC for the first time.

Find Reset this PC

Reset this PC is available from multiple places:

Settings. You can find Reset this PC in the Settings app in Windows 11: Navigate to System > Recovery and you will find a “Reset this PC” option under “Recovery options.”

Windows Recovery environment. Reset this PC is one of the recovery tools available in this offline troubleshooting experience. To get to it, navigate to System > Recovery, find the Advanced startup option under “Recovery options,” and click the “Restart now” button. When the PC reboots, click “Troubleshoot” and then “Reset this PC.”

Recovery drive. If you created a recovery drive or Windows 11 installation media as described above, you can boot the PC with that drive, make your way to the Windows Recovery Environment, choose “Troubleshoot,” and then “Reset this PC.”

Unless your computer is not booting into Windows 11 correctly, the most typical way to access Reset this PC is via the Settings app, so I will focus on that here. But all of these methods work similarly.

Tip: Reset this PC can be customized by your PC maker so that it includes their bundled apps and utilities too. But you can override this choice if you’d like to avoid installing those programs, as noted below.

Tip: Reset this PC can use a local or cloud-based Windows install image when resetting (or refreshing) Windows 11. The local image–that is, the version stored in a hidden partition on your PC’s primary storage device–is updated to the latest version each time you install a feature update. The cloud-based version is always up-to-date.

Be prepared. Reset this PC is inherently destructive, since it will wipe out your current Windows 11 installation and then reinstall the system from scratch. As such, you should proceed carefully: Back up any important documents and other personal files if possible, and prepare to reinstall any desktop applications you use.

Use Reset this PC to refresh or reset your PC

When you run Reset this PC, you’ll be presented with a choice.

Available options include:

• Keep my files. This is the refresh option, where Windows 11 is wiped out and then reinstalled, but your user account and, optionally, its documents and other data are retained, along with any Microsoft Store apps you may have installed. If you choose this option, desktop applications are deleted and will need to be reinstalled manually.
• Remove everything. Here, Windows 11 is reset: everything on your PC–your user account, data, settings, applications, whatever–is deleted, and Windows 11 is reinstalled, bringing your PC back to the way it was when you first received it. When it’s done, you will need to sign in with a user account as if it were the first time you’ve ever used the PC and then reinstall any apps you wish to use.

Tip: If you recently upgraded the PC from one Windows version to another, you may see a third option, “Restore factory settings,” which can be used to reset the PC to the previous version. This option is only available temporarily.

To refresh your PC, choose “Keep my files.” This option reinstalls Windows 11, keeps your Microsoft account and any personal files, and removes any settings changes you’ve made.

To reset your PC, choose “Remove everything.” This option reinstalls Windows 11, removes your Microsoft account and any personal files, removes any settings changes you’ve made, and removes any apps and utilities that were installed by your PC maker.

The next steps are nearly identical whether you want to refresh or reset the PC.

In the next screen, you’re asked to choose between a cloud download, in which the latest Windows 11 installation image is downloaded from Microsoft, or a local reinstall, in which case it uses the Windows 11 installation image that is already on your PC. The latter option is faster.

Next, you can optionally choose additionally settings.

Be sure to click the “Change settings” link here before proceeding as you will see additional options.

Here, you can optionally enable:

• Restore preinstalled apps? If set to “Yes,” as it is by default, Reset this PC will reinstall your PC maker’s bundled apps and utilities as part of the refresh process. If you change this to “No,” those programs will not be reinstalled.
• Clean data? Seen only when performing a reset, this option is set to “No” by default, so Reset this PC will not fully clean the disk. This is the correct setting if you are simply going to continue using the PC yourself, as it is much faster. However, if you are selling or giving away the PC to others, you should change this to “Yes.” Doing so will make the reset process take longer, but your personal data will be securely wiped from the drive.

Tip: If your PC has more than one physical drive, you will also be asked if you wish to remove files from all the drives. Be careful here, especially if you are using a secondary drive for data that you don’t want to be erased.

• Download Windows? This is another chance to choose between a cloud download and a local reinstall. It should be set according to the choice you made earlier.

Click “Confirm” to continue and then “Next” to begin the restore process, which should take 20 to 30 minutes for a local reinstall or longer if you chose the cloud download. This process typically requires two reboots and includes two distinct phases: A resetting phase in which the screen has a black background and then a longer installing phase in which the screen has a medium blue background.

What you see when it’s done will vary.

If you did a refresh, you will land on the Windows 11 Lock screen so you can sign in using your previously configured account. When you navigate to the Desktop, you will find a web document called Removed Apps that will list the desktop applications you previously had installed on this PC and, when possible, hyperlinks so that you can find them on the web and reinstall them. (Your installed Store apps are available as before.)

If you did a reset, the PC will reboot into Windows Setup and the Out of Box Experience (OOBE)–described in the Install chapter–that you use when setting up a new PC.