Win7's no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall
This could be useful!
Thursday, July 14, 2011 by RedneckDude | Discussion: Windows 7
This looks like something a lot of people would find helpful. My luck, Doc has already posted this. 
TOP STORY
Win7's no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall 
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/
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Reply #2 Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:36 AM
This is exactly what I require. 
Thank-you so much. 
Don't have time this morn but, later......
Reply #3 Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:47 AM
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.
Reply #4 Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:49 AM
Bookmarked for future reference. Thanks RnD for the heads up.
Reply #5 Thursday, July 14, 2011 11:18 AM
Actually no, Jim. I think it's a wonderful find - and thanks for it. 
Reply #8 Thursday, July 14, 2011 4:59 PM
Useful information, Jim! Thanks for sharing, bro.... 
Reply #9 Thursday, July 14, 2011 6:11 PM
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. 
Reply #10 Thursday, July 14, 2011 6:18 PM
So do I. Last few weeks now. In fact I saw it in my inbox while installing Emsisoft 3.0
Reply #11 Thursday, July 14, 2011 7:33 PM
That is brilliant. Bookmarked for future reference. 
Reply #13 Friday, July 15, 2011 12:24 AM
bookmarked... thanks Jim... [e digicons]:karma:[/e]
Reply #14 Friday, July 15, 2011 1:32 AM
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 Friday, July 15, 2011 12:02 PM
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 Friday, July 15, 2011 12:38 PM
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 Friday, July 15, 2011 8:59 PM
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 Friday, July 15, 2011 9:05 PM
I use the built-in Windows backup to do all that. Plus SyncBack to do my D drive.
Reply #19 Friday, July 15, 2011 9:50 PM
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.
Yep, Acronis has been my saviour more than once since I bought it a couple of years back.
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Reply #1 Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:27 AM
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 ....