Windows 7 repair

[NGXfanatic 85]

Hi folks, I fear that I have some corrupt files in my W7 install.   For starters, I have the icons in my pictures folder set to display thumbnails, but for some reason, they are only showing as generic icons.  Also, If I click on the Icon and try to view it in the preview pane option, nothing shows in the pane.  I tried all kinds of fixes from the web, none took.  Some other sporatic issues have crept up, nothing major, but In the 3 years I have used W7, I never recall having such issues.   I just ran the sfc/ scannow in the command prompt, and it shows lots of corrupted files, but it cannot fix them.

 

I think the best thing to do is to just run a windows 7 repair.  I never tried this before, but from my research this is basically like an upgrade install, so that theoretically I should be able to keep all my user settings and applications and their settings intact.   But I have a slight fear that it could screw up my FSX install or the registry, and I don't want to have to then reinstall the OS and FSX again from scratch.  This shouldn't happen, but it's something that is weighing on my mind.  I have been living with the missing thumbnails since I reinstalled the OS from scratch at the beginning of the year, but I think I have run out of patience and just want to get that functionality back, and I do remember running a similar repair install on an older windows OS without consequence, so maybe my apprehension is irrational.

 

Have any of you had to run a windows 7 repair, and were you able to retain your previous FSX install without any issues?

[pete_auau 1,152]

Hi folks, I fear that I have some corrupt files in my W7 install.   For starters, I have the icons in my pictures folder set to display thumbnails, but for some reason, they are only showing as generic icons.  Also, If I click on the Icon and try to view it in the preview pane option, nothing shows in the pane.  I tried all kinds of fixes from the web, none took.  Some other sporatic issues have crept up, nothing major, but In the 3 years I have used W7, I never recall having such issues.   I just ran the sfc/ scannow in the command prompt, and it shows lots of corrupted files, but it cannot fix them.

 

I think the best thing to do is to just run a windows 7 repair.  I never tried this before, but from my research this is basically like an upgrade install, so that theoretically I should be able to keep all my user settings and applications and their settings intact.   But I have a slight fear that it could screw up my FSX install or the registry, and I don't want to have to then reinstall the OS and FSX again from scratch.  This shouldn't happen, but it's something that is weighing on my mind.  I have been living with the missing thumbnails since I reinstalled the OS from scratch at the beginning of the year, but I think I have run out of patience and just want to get that functionality back, and I do remember running a similar repair install on an older windows OS without consequence, so maybe my apprehension is irrational.

 

Have any of you had to run a windows 7 repair, and were you able to retain your previous FSX install without any issues?

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/410271-i-think-i-screwed-up/

check out the last post  

[NGXfanatic 85]

Wow, I found the "how to repair" link referenced in Bryan's post yesterday, and was actually going to use that for my repair!   Looks like it's a go for me, I'm going to get started soon and hopefully rid myself of the the gremlins that have snuck up on my OS install.

 

Thanks again!

[NGXfanatic 85]

Well, I was able to repair my windows 7 OS install so that it fixed at least one problem I noticed, the missing thumbnails on the jpgs in my picture folder.  Yay!   But, I am now experiencing issues in FSX.  First, when I loaded FSX a window popped up that read "The msxml4 sp2 component is not installed, please reinstall FSX..."   YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thanks to google, I was able to find the missing service pack for MSXML 4.0 online at the Microsoft website, I installed it and then was able to get FSX to open again. 

 

Phew!  Or so I thought.  Now when I load a flight in the PMDG NGX, the gauges are all black, and the addon menu is missing the 6-7 addons that are normally listed, just showing one.   Also, I cannot start Active Sky Evolution, as it complains that it could not load FSX SimConnect SP1 or SP2.   So it appears my Simconnect files are corrupted, as most FSX addons rely on Simconnect to function correctly.

 

I am very concerned, as my distant fear that FSX (installed on a separate hard drive) would lose it's connection to my OS's registry and need a fresh reinstall are starting to surface.  However, I am hopeful this is just some discrepancy in the "repaired" OS registry, possibly a missing link somewhere.   I have run into situations before where I was scared that I was going to start from scratch, something that takes a week or two to handle with FSX and all my addons, but have always managed to find a simple fix to avoid all that hassle and wasted time and effort.  I am praying that the gurus here in AVSIM can help me this time!

 

I had a look at my roaming apps folder where the various cfg files are stored, FSX.cfg, XML.xml and EXE.xml, and they are exactly the same as they were before the OS repair.  I tried my first trick to resolve FSX issues, deleting the fsx.cfg and letting FSX rebuild it, but that didn't work.   This is a pretty serious problem that appears to be involving the simconnect module.  

 

Does anyone have any ideas to help me resolve this without having to reinstall FSX from scratch?

 

 

EDIT:  About an hour after this post, I was able to solve my issue with simconnect by reinstalling the simconnect SP2 module from the SDK folder in my FSX drive.   Apparently, in my C:/windows/winsxs folder, I was missing all three simconnect entries, so something got screwed up when windows was migrating my old program settings during the in place upgrade.  Why just the simconnect entries were only affected, I have no clue, but I am relieved to have FSX back to where it was before the repair!  

 

To confirm, I went into my SDK folder:

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\lib

 

and ran the SimConnect.msi file to basically add simconnect back to my sim.

 

I'm leaving this post here in case anyone runs into a similar predicament in the future.

[pete_auau 1,152]

Maybe  some  one  can chime here  but  have you tried   deleting your  fsx.cfg  and letting it rebuild itself,  tried  doing  a fsx repair option, 

 

Once  you have  got it  sorted  this  is  a good lesson for you to mirror  your  hard drive  to an external drive using  a payware  addon eg  acronis  true image,  this  would have  save  you lots of  hassles  for next  time   some  thing like this  happens  than it just a matter of minutes  of just  re installing  again  from your  external

 

Good luck

[NGXfanatic 85]

Hey Pete, it looks I was editing my post at the same time you were typing your response, but I'm sure you are duly relieved to know that I was able to find a simple solution.

 

Coincidentally, I just started using Acronis late last year to make disk copies of my OS and FSX drives.  I learned this painful lesson last November, when a nasty virus infected my OS and forced me to reinstall the OS and rebuild my FSX drive from scratch.   I had never had to reinstall FSX or my OS since I built this computer in April 2010, and it took 2-3 weeks to get both the OS and FSX back to the condition it was previously in, and I swore I was never ever going to go through that headache ever again.   In fact, if this simconnect issue was going to force me to reinstall FSX (and my OS as well, since FSX and all my addons are so embedded in my registry), I was just going to restore both disk images to save myself that pain and suffering.   But unfortunately, that still wouldn't resolve the underlying issues I was having with the OS, as restoring the OS disk image would put me back to where I was before, with the nuisance of the missing .jpg file thumbnails and who knows what other issues were present then.   But, I probably would have accepted that choice as those minor issues pale in comparison to spending another 2 weeks rebuilding everything again.

 

Anyhow, I dodged a bullet, and I want to thank you for listening to my problem.

[pete_auau 1,152]

Very good news  that you got it  working  guess  I should have  waited till you  edited  your previous post :0

[eurowing 13]

hi, I am in a similar situation. my registry is messed up to the point where I can not activate the firewall anymore and have no access to the homegroup. I have tried all kinds of "fixes" from around the web to no avail.

 

so I am looking into a windows repair. my win7 DVD is without SP1. I read somewhere (can't remember where it was) that I need to uninstall SP1 before proceeding with this reapir ("upgrade)" method. did you actually do that and if so it seems there were no problems with that? or did you download the SP1 RC from the link? (I would just do that but it seems much simpler to just take my win7 DVD)

 

thanks.

[NGXfanatic 85]

I also have a DVD of Windows7 without SP1.  I think all dvds are without SP1, so the only option is to download a repair ISO with SP1 included.   I'm not sure about the possibility of uninstalling SP1 and then repairing.

 

Google search for an in-place repair of w7 with SP1, you should be able to find a page where you can download the ISO you can burn to a CD to run the repair.  My memory is a little foggy on this, so please forgive the sloppy reply.

[eurowing 13]

I actually went ahead and pulled the trigger on this yesterday. I did download the SP1 and burned it on a disc and used that. just to make sure.

 

I was surprised how well this worked for me. FSX was really slow to start and close after, but running the flight1 registry fix changed that for the better. everything else works well, no issues with AS2012, PMDG aircraft, etc.! couple of updates and drivers to install, NVidia inspector, that was it! all settings are still there.

 

definitely worth the effort, and 1,000,000 times better than an installation from scratch!

[NGXfanatic 85]

Glad to hear that worked out for you.  Clean installations are always a miserable experience if you have spent a lot of time setting up the OS and apps perfectly to your liking.  I was really really relieved when I was able to fix some niggling issues easily with the repair.