Screen Three
The "Starting Windows" screen is a bit of an overstatement; it's just the setup process getting going.
Windows, as we normally think of it, isn't running yet, and no changes have been made to your PC.

Soon after Screen Three, you'll be presented with the normal "Welcome to Setup" screen, as shown
in Screen Four.

Screen Four
The "Welcome to Setup" screen is poorly worded; the "Repair" option we want isn't the one explicitly
offered here.
In fact, the repair option we want isn't shown at all. See the text for full detail.

The poorly worded options in Screen Four lead many users astray. The only mention of "Repair" here
is " ...repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console..." but that's not the no-reformat
repair/reinstall we're seeking. (The Recovery Console Repair option is useful in its own right for fixing
relatively minor problems with the operating system, and we fully explore it in the links listed above.)

The repair option we do want--a nondestructive, no-reformat reinstall--is actually hidden beneath the
Setup option, "To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER."

So hit Enter, just as if you were setting up Windows afresh and from scratch.

The next screen, about licensing, gives no reassurances that you're on the right path for a nondestructive
repair/reinstall--in fact, it's the same screen you see when you're setting XP up on a virgin hard drive.
But this is only the first of many screens that the Repair option will borrow from a full-blown setup.
Press F8 to accept the licensing terms and to go on.

Screen Five
The licensing screen gives no indication that this is a Repair and not a brand-new, from-scratch installation.
But don't be alarmed. You're on the right track.

Next, the XP setup process will show another screen that you may recall from your initial setup of XP.
It searches for "a previous version of Microsoft Windows." In our case, we're not replacing a previous
version of Windows, but rather repairing the very same version that's on the setup CD--but that's OK;
it's just another poorly worded screen.

Screen Six
Our intent is to repair the same version of Windows as is on the setup CD, but another poorly worded
screen makes it seem like you're upgrading a previous version of Windows or installing one anew.
But don't let the bad wording alarm you; we're still on track for a nondestructive reinstall.

Screen Seven
At long last, Setup begins to refer to a Repair option. Here, Setup should have found your damaged
XP setup, which you can select and then press R to start the nondestructive repair.

If your damaged copy of XP isn't highlighted in the list box, highlight it now. When it's selected, press
R to start the repair process.

The Repair process then selectively deletes system files in the \Windows folder and subfolders and
copies undamaged replacement files from the setup CD to their proper locations.

Screen Eight
The Repair operation replaces all potentially damaged system files with fresh copies from the CD

The Repair process then works on the current setup's Registry, leaving much of it intact and rebuilding
the rest.

Screen Nine
There's no fanfare, but this is one of the nicer parts of the Repair process: Setup retains what it can in
the current Registry so that already-installed hardware and software will remain installed.

The system then needs to reboot and will do so automatically. If your setup CD is still in the drive,
remove it so that the system won't try to boot from it.

Screen Ten
With the system files freshly copied and the Registry ready for rebuilding, the system needs to reboot.
Remove the CD from the drive so that the PC will boot to the hard drive instead of to the CD.

The first Repair reboot will take longer than normal. Don't be alarmed. Also, don't be alarmed when
Setup resumes. Once again, it will appear that you're performing a full, from-scratch setup; there's
nothing on-screen to indicate that you're repairing an existing version of XP. But although the setup
screens are the same as what you'd see in a full install, it's still a repair process, as will become
clearer in a moment.

The first two of the Repair setup screens ask for your language preferences and product key.
Enter these normally.

Screen Eleven

Screen Twelve  When Setup resumes, it will appear that you're performing a full, from-scratch setup.
But don't worry--you're still indeed repairing your existing version of XP.

Screen Thirteen
The Repair version of the setup process skips or shortens many steps because it already has the
information it needs from the existing setup. For example, Repair's "installing devices" and the
network setup steps are both much faster and require less user input than a new setup does.

The setup screens don't reflect the fact that a Repair proceeds much faster than a normal, full setup.
In fact, the time estimates in the setup progress bar will be way off. You'll be done in far less time
than the progress bar predicts.

When this portion of the Repair is done, you'll see a "completing installation" screen:

Screen Fifteen
The "completing installation" screen means most of the heavy lifting is done, and you're just minutes
away from finishing the repair operation.

Setup then reboots your PC again, and this reboot will also take longer than usual. This is normal.

Screen Sixteen
With the bulk of the repair work done, your PC needs to reboot once more and will do so automatically.
The reboot will take a bit longer than a standard boot, but this is normal.

After the reboot, you'll be brought to an abbreviated version of the "Welcome To Windows" setup pages.

Screen Seventeen
The Repair process ends with still more screens borrowed from the full setup.
You'll be asked if you want to register and--depending on how badly hosed the previous installation
was--you may or may not be asked to reactivate the copy of Windows. Next, the setup software
handles the final networking details and then offers a "thank you" screen.

Screen Eighteen
The final steps in the Repair process pass very quickly, and you'll soon reach the last screen in the

Repair operation, a "thank you."

In most cases, the system will now reboot for a final time. The Repair is done. It's a normal boot,
bringing you to the normal choices for login.

Screen Nineteen
With a final, fully normal reboot, you're done. Your copy of XP should be as good as new,
but with all your previously installed hardware, software, and user configuration data undamaged!

If all has gone as planned, you'll find all the user accounts and passwords intact, all the hardware devices
set up as before, and all the previously installed software still installed and configured. In fact, if all has
gone as planned, the only significant change will be that whatever problem your copy of XP was
previously experiencing will now be gone!

You now have a range of repair tools at your disposal, ranging from simple on-the-fly fixes such as
Registry cleaning and safe Mode fixes to Recovery Console fixes (see links in the beginning of this article)
and, now, a nondestructive, no-reformat repair/rebuild option.
With this information, you should almost never have to face a dreaded start-over-from-scratch
reformat/reinstall of XP!

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To find out more about Fred Langa, please visit his page.