Difference Between Windows repair Installation & Windows Inplace Upgrade

Differences Between an In Place Upgrade and a Repair Install
Here are the differences between what an In Place Upgrade and a Repair Install do.
Remember:
- An In Place Upgrade is started from within a Windows XP desktop.
- A Repair is started by booting from the Windows XP CD.


What an In Place Upgrade Does and Does Not Do.

Changes made during an In Place Upgrade:
• Rolls back any Hot-Fixes, Service Packs, and Microsoft Internet Explorer upgrades to their base versions.

• Refreshes the registry and restores default registry values.

• Reapplies default permissions.

• Re-registers Component Object Model (COM) components and Windows File Protection (WFP) files.

• Re-enumerates Plug and Play devices, including the hardware abstraction layer (HAL). Re-enumerates and changes drive letters, based on the current drives and partitions that are seen during the In-Place Upgrade.

Changes Not made during an In Place Upgrade:
• Does not change the installed components and programs.

• Does not change any passwords. Does not change third-party registry entries.

• Does not change the role of the computer, for example, changing a domain controller server into a member server.

What a Repair Install Does and Does Not Do.

Changes made during a Repair Install:
• Rolls back any Hot-fixes, Service Packs, and Microsoft Internet Explorer upgrades to their base versions. This is like Setup, so any OS supplied files are overwritten with the ones from the Windows XP CD. Additionally added files are left in-place. Drivers may change depending on the version installed and if the driver is redetected and reinstalled. What drivers are installed might be dependant on what is on the system.

• Driver Cache is flushed. So all the additional driver files are removed, including SP1.cab.

• Refreshes the registry and restores default registry values. Some values are reset to default; this is like an upgrade so some settings are migrated.

• Reapplies default permissions (if allowed to). If system account is denied access, we cannot change the file or registry settings.

• Re-registers Component Object Model (COM) components and Windows File Protection (WFP) files. All OS DLL's are registered. WFP runs at the end of GUI mode setup so the files are scanned, all the files should be overwritten, but remember the driver files may still be the ones from the SP or the driver cache folder. I think, not really sure on this, the existing catalogs stay in-place so the files can be from any catalog.

• Re-enumerates Plug and Play devices, including the hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The Hal is redetected, so this could change depending on the scenario.

• Re-enumerates and changes drive letters, based on the current drives and partitions that are seen during the Repair Install.

• Catroot folder shows some of the updated cats but not all of them.

• Some of the new INF files from the service pack remain in place; the files referenced by these INF's are removed.

• Servicepacksourcefile still exists in the registry HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup. (Layout and drvindex are gone so the most common pointers to this regkey are removed. (SFC shouldn't have an issue with entry, only newly added components)

Changes Not made during a Repair Install:
• Does not change the installed components and programs.

• Does not change any passwords.

• Does not change third-party registry entries.

• Does not change user accounts or local profiles