Windows XP had a great feature called Recovery Console with which users could troubleshoot various problems related to the startup of your computer. It took a long time all the XP users to know about the Recovery Console and its commands and by the time people got aware it got discontinued in Windows Vista, but why did Microsoft do this. Why have they discontinued such a nice troubleshooting tool? This is done because Windows Vista has a much better graphical interface for fixing such problems. The recovery Console in XP was a full command line interface and required good knowledge of computers to work upon, but Windows Vista Repair tool is totally Graphical and anybody can use it to fix the problems.

The Windows Vista repair can be invoked by several ways and they depend if you have got the Vista Installation Disk or not. If you have the disk then it can be run by booting from the disk and if you got Vista preinstalled then it can be run from the advance startup menu. Let’s discuss both of them in detail.

If you have got the Windows Vista Disk and your computer is booting to the desktop then you can start the Repair from within Windows. Insert the disk and start with the installation. When you will click on Install Now it will ask if you wish to repair the existing Vista installation. Click on Repair and the repair will start. If you are not able to boot to the desktop then insert the vista installation disk and boot from it. Again click on Install and then Click on Repair. On clicking on repair from either way you will get the following choice of repairs that can be performed:

  1. Startup Repair: this can be used for automatically fixing any startup issues in which Windows Vista fails to load itself.
  2. System Restore: this will start the Windows System restore utility and then you can restore your computer back to any restore point created previously.
  3. Windows complete PC restore: this works only if you have created full backup of your computer in past and have the backup available. Backup can be created from the Backup and Backup and Restore Center of Windows Vista.
  4. Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: this tool when started checks for any hardware problems in the physical memory(RAM) installed on your computer.
  5. Command Prompt: Give you Recovery Console types liberty to do the troubleshooting yourself by using various commands.

If you have an OEM computer on which Windows Vista came preinstalled and you didn’t receive and installation disk for Windows Vista then you can start the repair process by tapping the F8 key after starting your computer. Tapping of Function 8 key displays the Advance Boot Menu and one of the option there is to Repair your Computer”. Use the keyboard to highlight this option and press enter to start the repair process. Once started the repair process and all the tools available in the repair section are the same as mentioned above.