Repair Installation of Windows XP

There may come a time when you are no longer able to get into the operating system no matter how hard you try. Time and time you have tried and you have tried the last known good configuration option and nothing has worked. You didn't backup your data and now you have pretty much resigned yourself to losing the data that you had worked so hard for.

Fortunately there's an out for this. You can do a repair installation of the operating system and usually you'll keep your data and often times you'll still have the same programs installed that you had before. You will need to visit Windows Update as soon as you're able to after this but this is often an overlooked repair option when there's nothing else to try. If possible you'll want to save your data before doing this but it's worth a shot if nothing else proves beneficial.

From Microsoft^®:
How to perform an inplace upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP

Another, more detailed, site from Michael Stevens (Microsoft MVP):
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

OS: XP > General
Date: 06/07/05

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