- Advanced Boot Options
- System Recovery Options
- Repair Install
- Other Useful Utilities
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Other Useful Utilities
System Recovery Options are great for troubleshooting low-level boot-time and memory errors, but they don't resolve file and system issues. For that you'll need some system-level tools, and Control Panel contains most of them.
Reliability and Performance Monitors
The Windows Reliability Monitor keeps a historic record of all system faults and failures. You can open the Reliability Monitor under the System and Security > Action Center section of Control Panel, or just type reli into the Start Menu Search box and select Reliability Monitor in the results list. Reliability Monitor allows you to track system stability and generate an event graph based on failures, installs, and uninstalls. Use the Reliability Monitor to identify and isolate system-level issues after installing new software or changing configurations and settings.
System File Checker (SFC)
The SFC is a command-line tool that scans and evaluates the integrity of all protected Windows 7 system files. SFC attempts to replace corrupted, damaged, or incorrect versions of Windows system files where possible. You can invoke SFC from the command line by opening an administrative command prompt (type cmd in the Start Menu Search box, right-click the cmd.exe entry, and choose Run as administrator). Type sfc /scannow and press Enter—you won't have to interact; it will automatically process system files.
Check Disk
You can find the "Check Disk" utility in two places: on the Tools tab of the System Properties dialog box (right-click a drive entry in Windows Explorer and select Properties), or by typing chkdsk on the command line (open an administrative command prompt). Check Disk scans your hard drive for problems and fixes recoverable errors or resolves bad sectors.
Finally, you can use Control Panel's Action Center (under System and Security) to access the Troubleshooting link to find and fix problems related to programs, hardware and sound, network and Internet, and other issues.
Action Center also provides you a place to view solutions to problems that Microsoft has resolved from customer feedback. In Windows 7, unlike Windows Vista, troubleshooting tips not only provide useful information but its troubleshooting Wizards also seem to diagnose problems more accurately. Likewise, when those Wizards are invoked, they also seem to fix genuine problems more often than was the case in Vista.