Windows 7 - Repair Install

That's great news Blackadder. Thank you for posting back. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

Thank you Brink for this guide.
Anyway, if I do a Repair install, I just need to reinstall the drivers and other files won't be infected like file association or save games in the Documents folder?
Please give me some advice.
Thanks again, your help will be appreciated.

You're welcome Mual,

Sometimes you may need to reinstall a driver, but not always. After the repair install (in-place upgrade), double check your devices in Device Manager to see what driver version they have to tell if you need to install the latest driver version again.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I'm forced to use this method to update my netbook's Windows 7 to SP1 because for some reason it wont accept the service pack install, so have made a slipstreamed DVD.

I started doing it while signed in but it said that some things needed modifying and it couldn't continue until a reboot was made, meaning it would continue from boot up, is this normal and OK?

I guess it has objected to my mods to get the old sidebar and Windows Mail working, which is most likely what prevented the SP standalone from installing.

Pending your answer I pulled out the DVD and am booted up normally.

Hello Peter,

I suppose that as long as it's still doing the in-place upgrade that you started while in Windows 7, it should be ok. I would recommend to create a system image backup first to be safe though.

I'm having an issue with IE8 (32bit only), and so was trolling another forum on microsoft.com.
The OP there found and refered to this thread, and it fixed his particular problem.
Good to see your work is being found and is helpful in other places. Keep it up Shawn

Thanks Shawn. FYI I really don't have the room on a netbook to do a system backup especially as this is drive D: - C: is XP Pro and I actually installed Win 7 from within that OS so I could preserve drive letters etc. I usually do that with all my multi-boots, installing them all from the first partition.

OK I'll start it up again to see what happens. If you hear a loud crash it's my netbook being thrown forcibly threw my window. LOL.

I think if I wasn't dual-booting on my netbook simply installing the service pack might have gone OK. Unlike my PC multi-boot which went OK probably because it's Vista/Win 7, the 1st OS is XP & I seem to remember a similar problem installing a Vista service pack years ago because it couldn't find the correct boot files (Vista and later OS's use different boot files).

Now this is weird, I just started it up again from within Win 7 thinking it would start from point "A" again and this time it's going ahead. Maybe it did the repairs, whatever they were when I rebooted last.

It's now happily "Upgrading Windows"...that makes me breathe a sigh of relief as I know that at least my files and settings should be preserved, if not the tweaks. The latter can be done again.

If it stops my XP from booting there will be much gnashing of teeth, but let's not panic unnecessarily.

That's great news Peter.

I had a update freeze up on me like that before when it was getting ready to restart. When I restarted the computer it picked right back up where it left off and continued installing. Strange indeed, but it works.

Thank you Matt.