Win7's no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall

This could be useful!

http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/
from WinCustomize Forums

This looks like something a lot of people would find helpful. My luck, Doc has already posted this.  O:)

 

TOP STORY

Win7's no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall

Fred Langa By Fred Langa

Microsoft won't tell you this, but you can do a fast, nondestructive, in-place, total reinstall of Windows 7 without damaging your user accounts, data, installed programs, or system drivers.

That means you may never have to do a full, from-scratch reinstall again, even when your system is misbehaving so badly that a full reformat-and-reinstall seems the only answer!

As I'm sure you know all too well, from-scratch reinstalls are ordeals. They take hours. And when a reinstall is done, you still have to recreate all your settings, reinstall all your software, and so on. It can take days to fully recover from a total reformat/reinstall.

Windows' little known, in-place reinstall takes only a fraction of that time and effort and yet completely rebuilds, repairs, and refreshes an existing Windows installation. It leaves your other software alone (no reinstallation needed!) while also leaving user accounts, names, and passwords untouched.

When you're finished, your Windows installation is just as it was before, except that all the system files are fully repaired, refreshed, and ready to go.

This nondestructive-reinstall ability has been in Windows since XP. (See this XP reinstall article that I wrote for another publication, years ago, when XP was new.) But — for reasons unknown — Microsoft has never made nondestructive reinstalls an official repair. In fact, it's not even listed in Win7's System Recovery Options (Help & How-to page).

(Vista users, you're not forgotten! The nondestructive reinstall process for Vista is nearly identical to that described in the rest of this article.)

 

Get the rest of this awesome tip here:

http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/

 

19,985 views 39 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

My luck, Doc has already posted this.

RND...had he done so he would have selected parts of the text/content and linked back to the source for/if people wish to read the full story.

Unless 'Fred Langa' mentions somewhere re article distribution - consent ....;)

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

This is exactly what I require.    5* 5*    Thank-you so much.    :)      Don't have time this morn but, later......

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 1

My luck, Doc has already posted this.


RND...had he done so he would have selected parts of the text/content and linked back to the source for/if people wish to read the full story.

Unless 'Fred Langa' mentions somewhere re article distribution - consent ....

 

Fixed, sorry Jafo, I didn't mean to plagiarize his article, just trying to be helpful.  O:)

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Bookmarked for future reference. Thanks RnD for the heads up.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

My luck, Doc has already posted this.

Actually no, Jim. I think it's a wonderful find - and thanks for it.   :thumbsup:

 

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 3
Fixed, sorry Jafo, I didn't mean to plagiarize his article, just trying to be helpful.

No problemo, RND ....as Doc said...a good find....;)

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Useful information, Jim! Thanks for sharing, bro....

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I get an email from Windows Secrets every so often. You can sign up on their site. It has some really good info most of the time.  :grin:   :moo:  

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

So do I. Last few weeks now. In fact I saw it in my inbox while installing Emsisoft 3.0

Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Beautiful work, Jim. It's a bit strange that they keep it cleverly hidden. It's the best way to go if you have serious problems.

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I knew you guys would like this. It really is a great thing to know. Beats the heck out of a total reinstall of all your apps and settings. Especially if you're like me and have several GAOTD apps installed that you can't get back.

Still, nothing beats a good backup program like Acronis.

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I used this about 9 months ago to fix a problem where I could not get to items to update using Windows update, I was actually given the solution on the the Windows technet forum they directed me to this forum with the solution

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top

 I use WD (western Digital). Came with the external HD. That does the incremental. I have another (freebie) that does the full back up including a mirror image of C plus I do manual backups to a separate partition on my external HD. Redundancy is a good thing.

Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Uvah, reply 17
 I use WD (western Digital). Came with the external HD. That does the incremental. I have another (freebie) that does the full back up including a mirror image of C plus I do manual backups to a separate partition on my external HD. Redundancy is a good thing.

I use the built-in Windows backup to do all that. Plus SyncBack to do my D drive.

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Beat me to it, Jim.   I found this article late last night [Oz time] but was too tired to be bothered so bookmarked it to post it this morning.  Not to worry, though... same result and the folk here at WC get to read some useful info.

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 15
Still, nothing beats a good backup program like Acronis.

Yep, Acronis has been my saviour more than once since I bought it a couple of years back.

Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Mark, they say great minds think alike! 

Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 20
Mark, they say great minds think alike

 

Yeah, right......you two dumbasses should get married........

Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting yrag, reply 21



Quoting RedneckDude,
reply 20
Mark, they say great minds think alike


 

Yeah, right......you two dumbasses should get married........

Hey Gary!!!  I love you too much for that, man!!!   :moo:

Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 20
Mark, they say great minds think alike!

Oh, okay.... just hope we didn't go proving somebody wrong there.

Quoting yrag, reply 21

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 20Mark, they say great minds think alike

 

Yeah, right......you two dumbasses should get married........

What, and risk being charged with bigamy? :-"

Nah, bugger that, we're better off living in sin. }:)

Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The more I think about this, the more I think that  chkdsk /f /r  should be run before the 'reinstall' as I think it won't fix some errors....

yrag, what do you think?

Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 24
The more I think about this, the more I think that chkdsk /f /r should be run before the 'reinstall' as I think it won't fix some errors....
yrag, what do you think?

It's a good idea..... the odds are even that it/there could be disk sector errors.

The actual sequence of procedures are:

Elevated Command: chkdsk /f /r
Check for ongoing errors.

Elevated Command: sfc /scannow
Check for ongoing errors.

No joy: proceed with OP.