Author Topic: Vista home premium  (Read 8490 times)

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Offline bent wheels

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Vista home premium
« on: July 08, 2017, 05:43:48 pm »
I need a install repair disc to use whenever it is needed to repair my computer, it came installed from the factory (E machines) so I have no disc. I am more than willing to purchase it as long as it is an original from Microsoft , I am troubled about buying one from an unknown, it may be more corrupt than mine.

  Microsoft Windows Vista home premium 32.

Offline Boggin

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Re: Vista home premium
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2017, 12:32:16 am »
You wouldn't be able to get an OEM version from Microsoft and the only disks you could get from the computer vendor would factory reset your computer.

If you needed to do a full repair on your OEM machine, then it will probably have a recovery partition which will allow it to be factory reset, after backing up your personal stuff, although you would need to reinstall any programs.

However, I think this site is trustworthy to download the 32 bit ISO from - https://webforpc.com/software/operating-systems/windows-vista-home-premium-iso-download-32-bit-64-bit/

I think this is the website I once downloaded the 64 bit ISO as a trial, although I don't have a Vista machine to test it on.

You can use Windows USB/DVD Burner Tool to create the bootable media of your choice which will only create the media if it is an ISO, which gives you an additional check.

http://wudt.codeplex.com/

Offline bent wheels

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Re: Vista home premium
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2017, 11:39:42 am »
Hi thanks for the info, I went to the sight you suggested and thay are all downloads I was hoping to get a disc Be cause to my way of thinking how would you run the download if my computer crashes and I cant get in?  O.K.  I have given away how much I know about all this computer stuff, im having trouble just trying to get around this forum.  Heres a dumb one , if the o.s. is in  a partion  from the factory and I have its numbers, can I use that?   wheels.

Offline Boggin

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Re: Vista home premium
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2017, 01:56:37 pm »
The product key will be in the system but because it is encrypted, it will be unreadable.

On an OEM machine, that key will be a generic one and wouldn't reactivate the volume if you performed a clean install.

Machines that came with the OS pre-installed usually have a recovery partition which you can use to factory reset the machine back to how it was out of the box.

However, because this will wipe all of your personal stuff and any programs you may have installed, you will need to back up your personal stuff to load it back in and reinstall any programs after the reset.

This article may be of interest for how to repair an emachine but I'm not familiar with Easy Recovery Essentials so couldn't advise creating a boot disk for it.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/emachines-recovery-disk/

I always set my laptops to check the DVD drive before the HDD in the boot order so that if I have any problems, I can stick an install disk into the DVD drawer and then switch the machine on where it will boot up from it.

You can open a disk drawer without turning the machine on by waggling a suitably sized darning needle or straightened paperclip into the small hole that is in the disk drawer and that will pop it open.

To change the boot order you will need to tap the key you see when the machine first boots up for Setup.

It's usually F2 and then use the cursor keys to navigate to Boot then use the cursor keys to select the DVD drive and use F5 or F6 to move it to the top - ensuring you select Save and Exit to make the setting permanent.

If the machine doesn't boot then you may also be able to tap F12 as you switch on to give you a one off boot order change.

I would go ahead and download that Vista x32 bit ISO and create a bootable disk as with one of those you can boot the machine up with it and navigate to the recovery environment to select the Command Prompt and enter these cmds.

First you need to know where the computer sees the volume as it doesn't always see it in C:

Enter bcdedit |find "osdevice"

That is a Pipe symbol before find and is the uppercase of \

Using the partition letter that gives you, use that instead of the X I use in this cmd -

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=X:\ /offwindir=X:\Windows

There is a space before each / and that will compare your system files to those on the install disk and repair as necessary.

From within Windows you can run a Command Prompt as an admin by going Start - type cmd - riight click on cmd and select Run as administrator - accept the UAC and enter sfc /scannow

If that reports it is unable to repair some files then you would run the offboot sfc /scannow.

There is also the cmd chkdsk which is either run as chkdsk /f or chkdsk /r

The /f switch will repair any files and the structure of the HDD whereas a /r switch will check the physical side of the HDD to look for bad sectors and has the attributes of /f.

If a chkdsk /r reports any KBs in bad sectors then it's time to create a full system image of your computer in preparation of the HDD failing completely.

Some OEM machines can be repair installed where you have serious OS corruption, but you would need the COA sticker key that is usually on the underside of a laptop and somewhere on the casing of a desktop PC as it needs to be reactivated after the install is complete.

However, as machines age, that sticker key becomes unreadable.

I've made a note of mine on Win 7 laptops should I need that key and mine have faded.

Two are obsolete now as I've upgraded them to Win 10 and have just one laptop remaining with Win 7.

A repair install is better than a clean install as it doesn't affect your personal stuff or installed programs, but it would need all of the Windows Updates reinstalling.

I hope this novel will be of some help should you need to repair your machine - there is of course, the Windows Repair program you can download from www.tweaking.com