Win xp Pro repair??

I'm having a few problems with windows.

1. The search stopped working.
2. It boots up at the F8 screen more and more often.
3. Auto complete works sometimes.
4. I think the big ones coming.

My Question is, if I run the repair off the Windows disk, will everything work when it's done? Will it still recognize all the programs that are currently installed? I use about 33 different programs so it would be a real pain to have to reinstall them all again. Will I lose anything? Thanks.

 

yes, you should be fine. BUT, perhaps you should just run the system file checker first.

start-> run type
SFC /SCANNOW
hit enter

 

I was going to ask the same question. I've had XP Pro for about 3 yrs and haven't yet once had to reformat, unlike with 98 which was regularly!

If I might have some corrupt Windows system files that a system restore or an sfc check doesn't seem to fix, I dread having to re-install about 50 programs and then re-do all the configs etc, it would take me days...

Never having had to do it on XP before, I didn't realise there was a "repair" feature on the Windows CD. Obviously, I'd back up my data first, just in case, but I too would prefer it if I could retain my programs and data etc.

Are there any pros and cons of using the "repair" feature over a full reformat?

 

In my case it did fix the searh problem. However, by doing a repair, you lose all your updates. Yes my search did work but after I downloaded all the update, I lost my searc again. I downloaded this freeware and never looked back: http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack

 

Thanks. I don't mind having to redo updates (assuming you mean Windows ones?) compared to having to redo everything... Sorry if I seem a bit dumb at the moment, can you please confirm that doing a repair does not lose your data and your programs and their configs/preferences etc? Apart from updates, does one lose anything else?

Thanks in advance

 

Starlight, to limit the chance of any data loss, follow THESE suggestions.

Also, if you have Product Activation, you should as a precaution copy windows\system32\WPA.DBL and WPA.BAK to a floppy before doing a repair just in case.

MCD4x4, glad it's sorted, but do yourself a favour and try Google Desktop Search.

What Windows takes over 7 minutes to look for, it finds in a second.

 

Thanks very much for the link, Insomniac (sounds like me, LOL). I will follow that. I'll also try the Google Desktop Search, I didn't realise it works so much faster than the Windoze one!

I feel somewhat relieved that if I should have to re-install Windows, that I might not have to reinstall everything else too - it's a nightmare to me to have to do that...

 

Win XP repair works fine as far as keeping your programs and if you have windows automatic updates turned on, they run in the background so that you can still work on your desktop. The only issue I came across while using it is that you have to type in some command in the command window that pops up in the process somewhere. It's been some time since I had to use it so forgive me for not bieng more help with this, but I cannot remember when the command box pops up, or what the specific command was, but if you don't know it you should reference a bit to find it, before you try repair, because if I remember correctly, I didn't know the command and had to reboot, find it out and then go back to the disk and run it again with the proper command line. Other than that like I said before, it works fine and does not mess with your installed programs. Hope this sheds some light on this subject for people. Good luck and happy computing.

 

Starlight, The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard is also very useful.

 

Thanks to all for your replies