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Windows 7 Repair
I recall that when you insert a WIN7 CD into the CD drive of a machine that already has Win 7 installed that you have the option of either a clean install or a repair. My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? Thanks. |
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#2
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Windows 7 Repair
swalker wrote:
I recall that when you insert a WIN7 CD into the CD drive of a machine that already has Win 7 installed that you have the option of either a clean install or a repair. My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? In theory, nothing. "The Startup Repair tool repairs Windows 7 by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing." Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. -- As they did in 2000, software will spectacularly crash, hardware will explode, appliances will go haywire and attack their owners, and nuclear missiles will simultaneous launch and destroy the world. |
#3
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Windows 7 Repair
swalker wrote:
I recall that when you insert a WIN7 CD into the CD drive of a machine that already has Win 7 installed that you have the option of either a clean install or a repair. My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? Thanks. On the modern versions of Windows, Windows must be working and healthy enough to accept a Repair Install attempt. You insert the disc, and run "setup.exe" off the disk. That starts the repair install. The C:\Windows is moved to C:\Windows.old. A new C:\Windows is made, and the install starts. Programs and user files are preserved. A dialog box should alert you to the conditions of the install, and that Programs and user files will be preserved once you kick off the process. ******* Now, because that keeps so much of the original configuration, it's also not going to be good at removing malware. If the Repair Install keeps the registry content (in support of the installed programs), lots of stuff that launches malware could still be enabled. As a result, the utility of doing this, is a function of what you think this is going to fix. Will it remove a rootkit ? Probably not. Will it restore that set of DLLs you foolishly deleted in haste. Yes, it can put those back. It might even manage, by magic, to put back your network stack or something. But, because the process "respects" so much of what was there previously, there are going to be *lots* of corner cases it doesn't touch or fix. If a registry setting screwed up your networking stack, then that registry setting will still be present. It's almost like the utility (on Windows) of removing a program, using "Programs and Features" and expecting a re-install to fix a mistake or corrupted setting. Unfortunately, for better or worse, uninstalls don't clean the registry - it is rare software which has an uninstall option "remove all traces of settings" when doing a Remove. Consequently, I cannot (on average) recommend removing a program and reinstalling it again, as it achieves almost nothing for the effort. A Repair Install is similar. There will be some good cases for usage (such as deleting a set of important files or getting into a huff and deleting WinSXS or something), but for the more common problems, like malware or adware, there's no particular reason it's going to help. ******* A "Clean Install", where *everything* is thrown away, that can fix stuff. But is very expensive in terms of your personal time, to put everything back the way it used to be. User data and Programs will be removed, so you want backups of C: before doing that. As time passes, you consult your backup of C: and bring forward your email profile and so on, and gradually restore things. It takes some people months to complete the exercise, if done that way (because some people are pack-rats and they have 500 programs to restore). To do a clean install: 1) Don't be in a rush. 2) Make a backup of C: and friends. 3) Remove extraneous hard drives not involved in the installation process. This prevents collateral damage to the drives that you didn't back up. Your backup drive should be unplugged too. 4) Boot the installer DVD. 5) Have it format C: and do the install. 6) Take your time restoring email profile and the rest, using your backup image of C: to access the files. On one occasion, I had a Windows installer CD *delete* the partition table, even though I'd clicked cancel during an install. And this is yet another reason for backing up a hard drive, before starting an install. Just about anything can happen during an install. Normally pretty safe, but if **** happens... it can be very messy. HTH, Paul |
#4
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Windows 7 Repair
ken1943 wrote:
On Sat, 26 May 2018 22:38:59 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__" wrote: swalker wrote: I recall that when you insert a WIN7 CD into the CD drive of a machine that already has Win 7 installed that you have the option of either a clean install or a repair. My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? In theory, nothing. "The Startup Repair tool repairs Windows 7 by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing." Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. It is not as easy as XP was or 10 is now. Do research. I only did it once. The beauty of WinXP, is "Repair Install" could be applied to a dead OS. You could boot the CD and do Repair Install from there. Vista+ only allow "Repair Install" from the running OS, by executing "setup.exe" off the DVD. And that assumes a healthy OS to start with. Maybe this was an attempt by Microsoft to "discourage" the usage of Repair Install, because of the small amount of use cases where it's really going to work. Win10 is no better than Win7. Win10 has various flavors such as Reset, but it doesn't materially improve things all that much. You could Reset and still have a malware problem. I prefer full backups to achieve a desired end, as it's simpler for me to put back a couple of programs I might have added since the last backup, and do the necessary "delta" on my Downloads folder and the current Downloads folder. I prefer a recent (uninfected) backup as my "base". I've gone back as far as two years with a backup, and profited from it. I had a piece of software that was refusing to install. By going back two years, the software installed. Then it was my job, to figure out what could have changed. And I found some files made by the same company, which were conflicting with the installation. So the two year old backup didn't have those files. That's the oldest backup I ever used (temporarily) and got a benefit from it. The freshest backup I ever made, was only two hours old, when my Win7 Home Premium on the laptop bricked (corrupted file system, could not be fixed). And the backup I made that day, was because "you know, I haven't made a backup lately". I count myself very lucky on that one. A Repair Install would not have been possible in that case. I couldn't even get at my data, unless I used the backup image. I think I was up and running after about 20 minutes on that one (the laptop is a bit slow, so restore takes a bit longer). Paul |
#5
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Windows 7 Repair
ken1943 wrote:
On Sat, 26 May 2018 22:38:59 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__" wrote: [snip] Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. It is not as easy as XP was or 10 is now. Do research. I only did it once. I've actually never done a repair. It's always been either some trivial thing, or else a complete reinstall. -- Even so... I don't feel good about this. But, hell, when you're a professional target, what can you expect? |
#6
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Windows 7 Repair
In message , ken1943
writes: On Sat, 26 May 2018 22:38:59 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__" wrote: swalker wrote: [] My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? In theory, nothing. "The Startup Repair tool repairs Windows 7 by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing." Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. It is not as easy as XP was or 10 is now. Do research. I only did it once. What, if anything, _did_ you lose? -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf While no one was paying attention, weather reports became accurate and the news became fiction. Did not see that coming. - Scott Adams, 2015 |
#7
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Windows 7 Repair
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , ken1943 writes: On Sat, 26 May 2018 22:38:59 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__" wrote: swalker wrote: [] My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? In theory, nothing. "The Startup Repair tool repairs Windows 7 by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing." Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. It is not as easy as XP was or 10 is now. Do research. I only did it once. What, if anything, _did_ you lose? Just a heads up. You're on E-S. Right now, the E-S spool has a problem. It's like the indexing is broken. Messages from May 2018 are being re-injected into your message list. You're actually replying to a message from May. I suspect Ray Banana is going to need to rebuild whatever passes for an index on the E-S news server. So if you're thinking "wow, a lot of new messages now", well no, they're old messages being sent to you a second time. Paul (posted from AIOE) |
#8
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Windows 7 Repair
In message , Paul
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , ken1943 writes: On Sat, 26 May 2018 22:38:59 -0000 (UTC), "Auric__" wrote: swalker wrote: [] My question is, if you choose repair what does the repair overwrite? What user data is lost? In theory, nothing. "The Startup Repair tool repairs Windows 7 by replacing important operating system files that might be damaged or missing." Google "windows 7 repair" for some relevant info. It is not as easy as XP was or 10 is now. Do research. I only did it once. What, if anything, _did_ you lose? Just a heads up. You're on E-S. Right now, the E-S spool has a problem. It's like the indexing is broken. Messages from May 2018 are being re-injected into your message list. Yes, I'd spotted that ... You're actually replying to a message from May. .... but missed that that one was. (Maybe I posted my followup before I noticed the E-S problem.) I suspect Ray Banana is going to need to rebuild whatever passes for an index on the E-S news server. So if you're thinking "wow, a lot of new messages now", well no, they're old messages being sent to you a second time. Paul (posted from AIOE) It doesn't seem _that_ bad (which is odd). I can live with what I've seen so far. (The Turnpike 'group have suggested that use of the NewNwews flag/facility/whatever would be useful to avoid this sort of thing, but it makes more work for the server, so few do it [though apparently NIN do]; not having much idea what it actually does, I can't comment.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Veni, Vidi, Vomit (I came, I saw, I was ill) - , 1998 |
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