Windows Setup: Language Selection Screen Appears During In-Place Upgrade

When you run an in-place upgrade by running Setup.exe using the Windows 10 or 11 Media Creation Tool or ISO from Windows, the language selection screen pops up. This is unusual because the screen is supposed to appear only when booting from the USB setup disk.

language screen appears during inplace upgrade setup.exe

You may wonder why the screen appears even though you’re running setup.exe from within Windows.

Cause

Windows Setup thinks you’re booting from the USB setup disk even though you’re running it from Windows. The following registry key causes Windows to believe you’re booting from the Setup disk.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MiniNT

Please note that the “MiniNT” key and its registry values don’t exist in a standard Windows installation. Some user on your computer (or a third-party program) may have added it.

Resolution

To fix the Windows Setup issue during an in-place upgrade, delete the MiniNT registry key using these steps:



  1. Right-click Start, and click Run.
  2. Type regedit.exe and click OK.
  3. Navigate to the following registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MiniNT

    dism error 50 MiniNT Windows PE key

  4. Right-click MiniNT, and choose Delete
  5. Exit the Registry Editor.
  6. No restart is required.

Rerun setup.exe.

windows 11 setup screen

It should show the “Install Windows” screen now.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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