If you’re encountering the error message The system registry contains invalid file paths when you attempt to upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10 or from Windows 10 to Windows 11, then this post is intended to help you. You can try the solutions we will present in this post to successfully remediate this issue.
When you encounter this issue. you’ll receive the following full error message;
The system registry contains invalid file paths. Installation cannot proceed. This system image was applied without guaranteeing that drive-letter assignments would match across computers.
When this error prompt appears and the user clicks on OK, this leads to a restart and the following message appears:
Any changes made to the computer will be undone…
After half an eternity a restart occurs and after that the user will find his old Windows installed again.
The system registry contains invalid file paths
If you’re faced with this issue, you can try our recommended solutions below in no particular order and see if that helps to resolve the issue.
- Delete the drive letter of the System Reserved partition
- Delete some entries in System Variables
- Clean install Windows 11/10.
Let’s take a look at the description of the process involved concerning each of the listed solutions.
1] Delete the drive letter of the System Reserved Partition
To delete the drive letter of the System Reserved Partition, do the following:
- Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog box, type diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter to open Disk Management.
- In the window that opens, right-click on the System Reserved partition in the lower pane and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
- In the dialog that opens, click the Remove button.
- Exit Disk Management console and restart your PC.
On boot, retry the upgrade and see if the process will complete successfully without The system registry contains invalid file paths error. Otherwise, try the next solution.
2] Delete some entries in System Variables
To delete some system variables entries on the Windows 7/8/8.1, do the following:
- Invoke the Run dialog box.
- In the Run dialog box, type control system and hit Enter to open System Control Panel.
- In the System window, choose Advanced System Settings in the left column.
- In the System Properties window, click the Environment Variables button.
- Under System Variables, click Path.
- Now delete every entry except entries with the following path:
C:\Windows\system32
C:\Windows\Powershell
Once done, restart the PC and try the upgrade again and see if the issue is resolved or not. If the latter is the case, try the next solution.
3] Clean install Windows 11/10
You’re most likely to encounter this The system registry contains invalid file paths error if you’re using the Update Assistant or directly running setup from within the mounted Windows 11/10 ISO.
This solution entails you try to clean install Windows 11/10 on the machine instead and see if you can get past this upgrade block.
Hope this helps!
