Question : windows vista repair

I am wondering if there is a way in windows vista that you can do a repair O/S like the way you can in windows xp. I have replaced the motherboard and the processor and the memory in an hp machine and want to repair the o/s to get back up and running without having to do a clean install and lose all my programs and data. With win xp you can do this but with vista i have not been able to figure out how if at all

Answer : windows vista repair

There was an XP Repair option available on the WinXP installation CD to reinstall XP over itself, which would in most cases not disturb your data or installed programs.  Vista has an option like this also, described here:

http://vistasupport.mvps.org/repair_a_vista_installation_using_the_upgrade_option_of_the_vista_dvd.htm

The difference between XP repair and Vista repair is that you must be able to boot into Vista in order to repair it, while the XP repair option was chosen in XP's Recovery Console, which meant that XP didn't necessarily have to be still bootable.