Let’s face it, Windows XP is here to stay for a while longer. Especially with Service Pack 3 being released. Business can ill afford to be Microsoft’s Free beta test bed for Vista. Not when almost nothing in Vista is robust enough to stand up to the average in”duh”vidual user (apologies to Scott Adams).

So what happens when your Windows XP system really begins to crap out on you? Say you can no longer access printers. Or every so often when you power up you get a momentary BSOD and the system reboots and then works fine.

Let’s just say the system is running veeeeeeery slow. You can break out the OEM CDs included when you purchased the machine and backup all your data/mp3’s, try to find all the install CDs from all the extra programs purchased. You even kept all the MSI’s and install programs from everything you downloaded from the interweb, right?

Reinstallation is almost never the first answer and often times is rejected as the last resort. What can you do?

Windows XP comes with a handy little option during the setup call Repair Install on the Windows XP install CD. What this will do is let Windows find the current installation on the hard drive and install a “fresh” copy of Windows XP over top of it.

The big, huge, humongous difference between a Repair Install and a Reinstall is this: a Repair Install will keep the Windows Hive as intact as possible with regards to installed 3rd Party and non-OS software.

That means your Outlook PST files will stay where they are (and who of you out there really know where they are to begin with?) A Repair Install means that all of your customizations to your account (bookmarks, My Documents, etc) will remain intact.

Most of the problems caused by an aging Windows XP installation can be solved with a Repair Install of Windows rather than a reinstallation of the entire OS and software.

Now the bad news.

A Repair Install takes just as long as a Reinstallation of the OS. So look forward to an hour or so of watching the Microsoft Minute timer bounce around.

You will have to repatch your Windows Installation after the repair install completes. A Windows XP SP2 installation will need to download anywhere from 80 to 90 patches to get caught up.

If you downloaded and installed any malware, viruses, trojans, etc., a Repair Install WON’T get rid of those. You will still have to deal with those things FIRST (remove the virus and it’s files, delete malicious programs, etc) before you do the Repair Install.

But all in all, it is a GREAT time saver because you are just redoing the Operating System and not the entire hard drive and all the programs you added over the course of the months or years of your system’s life.

One more caveat.  When you load the Windows XP install CD do NOT select the option to repair using the Repair Console.  Continue on to the next set of menus.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Computer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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