Windows 7: How do I repair W7 without reinstalling my games?

I think my Windows 7 64bit needs repaired due to using cleaner and accidently ruining my registry.
But I have over 500GB on my 2nd D drive including games, mods and I don't want to sit for days reinstalling it all again.
Windows 7 and utilities are on my C drive but how can I do a full Windows 7 repair without affecting all the game entries in the registry?
I want to keep all the shortcuts to games in the games startmenu.
Is it possible?
Thanks.

Hello Barso, welcome to the Seven Forums.

What you need to do is called a Repair Installation. See this tutorial: Repair Install

Kari

Hello Barso, welcome to Seven Forums!



You may wish to have a look at the differences between these 2 tutorials to see which may be more appropriate for your needs; be sure to keep us informed.

Startup Repair

I have just run a sfc/scannow and it came up okay.
Would that be enough or should I continue with a repair install?
Thanks for help,much appreciated.

If sfc did the jon and everything works, there's no need to anything more.

Did you try a system restore point. The cleaner should also have a restore point? What cleaner did you use?

Hello Barso.



Here is good option if you have a Windows 7 install disk, use the tutorial at the link below to take the system back to a restore point before you made the changes to the registry; be sure to keep us informed.

PS. don't be concerned by the title, just use this method to do the restore.

Password Reset : Using System Restore in Windows 7

Thanks, I use ccleaner and I also did the startup repair and it showed no problem either.
Would I be under the assumption that all is okay?

It depends on performance.

If you want improved performnace, study/resolve errors in your Event Viewer>Admin View. Click through your WEI score link at Control Panel>System to use Advanced tools to view Performance-Diagnostics log and Generate a System Health report.

Edit msconfig>Startup to remove all but AV and any programs which absolutely must start up with computer - all others are freeloaders on your RAM and CPU. I startup only AV and MS>Gadgets+StikyNotes.

Test your HD by running full CD diag/repair scan: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp. followed by chkdsk.

Next run memtest86 CD overnight to stress test memory: Memtest86 - Download Page

System file checker was a good choice. I use it as a last resort before Repair Install - which keeps all of your programs, files and settings in place but reinstalls the OS. It can fix many problems.

It is doubtful that CCleaner messed up anything as I have used it for 10 years and never heard of it causing problems. More likely unnneeded tweaking or settings corruption which might be resolved by Repair install but could be reimported as a setting.

When you get it running as you like, then save a Windows 7 Backup Image externally (or to a primary partition) so you never need to reinstall again - just reimage the HD or a replacement from image using DVD/Repair CD. This might be an incentive to do a Clean Reinstall in the long run.

Thanks I had this message in the healt report:
Missing Events in Event Log
Details: Investigate why 19% (4,380) events were lost during data collection. The settings for Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) maximum buffers and buffer size may not be optimal depending on which data sets are being collected.

Everthing else passed.