Windows 7 Feature Focus: Recovery Environment
Windows 7 Feature Focus: Recovery Environment
Posted 08/10/2009 at 2:30pm
| by Mark Edward Soper
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Windows Vista introduced the Recovery Environment to the world of Windows, and Windows 7 has brought it back with even more improvements. Windows 7's Recovery Environment (also known as System Recovery Options) lives up to its predecessor, adding additional refinements and features. To learn how Recovery Environment makes fixing a balky Windows 7 installation easy, keep reading.
What is the Recovery Environment?
Windows 7's Recovery Environment enables users to perform a variety of system and data recovery tasks on a system that won't boot normally, including:
- Fixing boot-level startup problems (Startup Repair)
- Returning your system to a previous configuration (System Restore)
- Recovering your computer with a previously-created system image (System Image Recovery)
- Checking for defective memory (Windows Memory Diagnostic)
- Running command-prompt programs (Command Prompt)
In the following sections, we'll help you use each of these options so if (let's be optimistic here) you ever are faced with a system that won't start, you'll be ready.
Starting the Recovery Environment: Two Methods
Unlike Windows Vista, which did not include an option to start the Recovery Environment (RE) from the Advanced Boot Options menu in standard installations, Windows 7 installs an option to launch RE on this menu. To see the Advanced Boot Options menu, press F8 after restarting your computer.
Note that Windows 7 places the Repair Your Computer option, which starts Recovery Environment, at the top of the list of options.
But, what if your computer has lost the Recovery Environment files? Are you out of luck? Thankfully, no. On page 2 of our Windows 7 Feature Focus article on Windows 7 Backup and Restore, you learned how to create a System Repair disc. You can use the System Repair disc to start Recovery Environment, and I strongly recommend that you make one. You need a blank CD or DVD. Update: Yes, you can also use your Windows 7 DVD as a System Repair disc (hat tip to reader Pentium 0 - see comments - for the reminder).
Starting Recovery Environment from the Advanced Boot Options (F8) Menu
After you select Repair Your Computer from the Advanced Boot Options menu, here's what happens next:
1. Confirm your keyboard input method (and language, if you have installed multiple-language support). Click Next to continue.
2. Log into your installation. To enable access to the command prompt, select your user name from the pulldown menu:
3. Enter your password.
4. Click OK to continue.
5. The Recovery Environment (aka System Recovery Options) menu opens.
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Visitor999
December 15, 2011 at 10:08pm
Data Backup If you think of your Documents library as the center of your data universe, and keep an elaborate series of folders and files there and in other libraries, then you?ll understand the necessity of backing up these crucial files on a regular basis. To this end, Windows 7 supports both automatic and manual data backup options, enabling you to choose which files to back up and when. You can then restore your backups at any time to recover previous versions of documents, or to replace a file you may have accidentally deleted.
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cylax arnold
January 01, 2011 at 1:41am
Yes offcourse its absolutely correct window 7 is very best and useful for all, File Renamer ,I read and understand the entire article and I really enjoyed it to be honest. Thanks.
TedC
October 04, 2010 at 12:35pm
That was much better prestented than the microsoft article on the subject. The screenshots helped a lot.
If System Recovery Options seems nicer than you'd expect from Microsoft, it's because it came out of ERD Commander, which Microsoft bought Sysinternals to get.
gachevsky
August 12, 2009 at 1:23pm
Has anyone tried running System File Checker from the command prompt in the Recovery Environment? I'm assuming it would work if you can use any other commands.
ghot
August 10, 2009 at 10:57pm
....and a good move for MS, but Norton Ghost is still faster and easier :)
Take an OS, and edit out all the efficiency, and what you have left is a post-XP Microsoft operating system :)
Pentium 0
August 10, 2009 at 2:12pm
I managed to botch up my partition tables a couble days ago by shuting down my pc in the middle of the boot. Popped my Win 7 dvd in the drive, loaded up startup repair and it was automatically fixed in less than a minute.
Marcus_Soperus
August 10, 2009 at 2:21pm
It's amazing how easy Windows 7 makes this type of repair. And, thanks for the reminder that you can use your Windows 7 DVD as a repair disc (although I prefer to make a separate one).
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