The Ultimate WinXP Rebuild Feature

dafloppyone

dafloppyone

dafloppyone

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If you are an XP user, how about a WindowsXP option that allows you to completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation. And the kicker is, it leaves all your installed software alone. It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does.
The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use.

But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. And unlike a traditional full reinstall, this option doesn't leave you with two copies of XP on your hard drive. Instead, you end up with just the original installation, but repaired, refreshed, and ready to go.


http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897
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been using this for years, if fact used it after upgrading a mates PC, fitted new motherboard and CPU, ran the repair as shown above and his PC was back working in no time.

Some times some of the software needs to be reactivated, espacally games seem to suffer from this but its a lot easier then doing a clean install

oh and you have to do all the patching again, sp2 etc.

I supoose an up to date slipstreamed version of XP would be the best to use on a repair install.

Keep meaning to make one
 
lol this has been known for a very long time, it's not secret or hidden. Infact it was one of the first things i read when i joined these forums.
 
lol

still leaves loads of crap on your pc


www.nliteos.com
www.msfn.org

learn how to make a unattended disc, so you can format every day if you want and still have all your files and settings intact, but with a real fast xp installation
 
It's not hidden at all, people who are doing a destructive reinstall will see this option but choose to format the partition rather than repair. If you repair computers then you've probably known about it since the earlier versions of Windows. It was quite common to have to reinstall windows 95 "on top" of the existing installation to get it to boot if you had issues (as we know 95 had a lot of issues).
 
Best thing to do is: Re-install your OS, install all your drivers, programs you always install etc... Defrag, tidy up then take an image. Anythings goes bad, load the image! :)

TrUz
 
To be honest it's quite a lot of work for something which may or may not solve your problems. Personally I usually prefer doing a complete re-install, as you know that you will be getting everything nice and clean. OK, so it takes a bit longer, and then you have to configure everything and install apps afterwards, but it means less potential problems in the long run.
 
NathanE said:
The article keeps going on about it being "hidden"? In what way is it hidden?
Click to expand...

It isn't hidden but it possibly isn't the most obvious thing for a PC novice to locate, in the same way that many people question why you have to click on the Start button to Shut Down(and yeah there are several other ways to do it also). The article does appear to be written for complete beginners so that is likely to be why they are building it up to be some miracle of PC knowledge.

I've personally never bothered with a repair install, if my copy of Windows has got to the stage where I couldn't boot normally then the chances are I've royally knackered it and a fresh install is the best thing for it.
 
by "hidden" I guess he ment in plain view.
I have had mixed success using this option, a bit like system restore, it only works for fairly simple problems, and you're better off with a complete reinstall.

turbotoes
 
do you know them disks that you get with some pc resellers where it looks like a customised ghost image that you can boot from directly and has the image on that same dvd also?
how do you do this?
 
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