Is it ok to re-install Windows without formatting?

[davenetman]

A friend of mine has a pc with Windows XP Home on it, and she has many,
many problems with it. Examples are it hangs for a minute when booting,
her search function doesn't work, her remote assistance doesn't work,
she gets Windows Installer errors, it won't install Windows XP Service
Pack 2, etc etc etc. Lots if problems. I ran a few 'repair' programs,
but nothing helped. If it were my pc, I'd just format it and do a clean
Windows install. But she doesn't want to do that. She had lots of
files, programs etc that she "can't afford to lose", apparently she
doesn't have access to them on disc anymore. I'm wondering what would
happen if I re-installed Windows on top of the system as it is, without
first deleting anything. Would this work? Would her old programs still
work, and her old files remain? Is there a better way to have Windows
'repair' itself?

Thanks, Dave

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Have a look at the following article by Michael Stevens regarding a 'Repair'
installation of XP:

"How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install"
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Patrick Keenan]

A friend of mine has a pc with Windows XP Home on it, and she has many,
many problems with it. Examples are it hangs for a minute when booting,
her search function doesn't work, her remote assistance doesn't work,
she gets Windows Installer errors, it won't install Windows XP Service
Pack 2, etc etc etc. Lots if problems. I ran a few 'repair' programs,
but nothing helped. If it were my pc, I'd just format it and do a clean
Windows install. But she doesn't want to do that. She had lots of
files, programs etc that she "can't afford to lose", apparently she
doesn't have access to them on disc anymore. I'm wondering what would
happen if I re-installed Windows on top of the system as it is, without
first deleting anything. Would this work? Would her old programs still
work, and her old files remain? Is there a better way to have Windows
'repair' itself?

Thanks, Dave

You can do a repair install, which might - or might not - fix some of these
problems. The issue is the registry; the repair install seems to use the
existing registry, so if that's where the problem is, it won't be fixed.
Repair installs don't normally affect user data at all.

In any case if she has a lot of data files, they should be backed up right
away, particularly if the system is flaky.

HTH
-pk

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

A friend of mine has a pc with Windows XP Home on it, and she has
many, many problems with it. Examples are it hangs for a minute when
booting, her search function doesn't work, her remote assistance
doesn't work, she gets Windows Installer errors, it won't install
Windows XP Service Pack 2, etc etc etc. Lots if problems. I ran a few
'repair' programs, but nothing helped. If it were my pc, I'd just
format it and do a clean Windows install. But she doesn't want to do
that. She had lots of files, programs etc that she "can't afford to
lose", apparently she doesn't have access to them on disc anymore.
I'm wondering what would happen if I re-installed Windows on top of
the system as it is, without first deleting anything. Would this
work? Would her old programs still work, and her old files remain? Is
there a better way to have Windows 'repair' itself?

There is no way to literally re-install Windows on top of itself, but you
can do what's called a Repair Installation, which may be similar to what you
have in mind.

See "How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install" at
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

However, doing this may or may not solve her problems, depending on what
they are. If she has multiple problems as you describe, my guess is that a
repair installation won't solve them all.

Is she sure her system is malware-free? What anti-virus and anti-spyware
software does she run, and does she keep them all up-to-date? Checking the
system's malware status should be the first step in almost any
troubleshooting.

Regarding the "lots of files, programs etc that she "can't afford to lose,"
I assume by that statement that she has no backup of them. If that's the
case and she can't afford to lose them, she's playing with fire. Hard drives
can crash and many other problems can occur at any time that can cause the
loss of everything. If she truly can't afford to lose them, backing them up
regularly is imperative.

The reason I mention backup is that anything she may do to solve her
problems like doing a repair installation tends to increase the risk of
losing her data. Although there's no reason to expect problems, you should
be prepared for them. Things *do* go wrong and often when you least expect
them.

Finally, with regard to any programs she can't afford to lose, if she no
longer has the disks for them, she's in serious trouble there. You can't
back up programs the way you can back up data. If you have to reinstall the
operating system, you also have to reinstall all the programs, and
installation disks will be needed. If that occurs and she doesn't have them,
she'll have to buy them again.

 

[davenetman]

Guys, thanks so much for replying. This is good information. I've read
the website you refered to about the Repair Installation, and it's
pretty straightforward. Sounds like it's just what I was looking for!

Question: When doing a Repair Installation, will Windows need to be
re-activated?