Good Day

Windows vista is also causing lots of boot problems, so I often get questions like this:

I have a Dell Dimension, which won’t boot to Windows (Vista), and none the repair variants work:

Startup repair: Reports fix fail due to problem with registry

System Restore: Reports no restore points available

Windows Complete PC Restore: Reports no backups available

Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: No memory problems

Command Prompt.
Can’t think of any appropriate command to use here.

So I booted with the system DVD (as one would with XP) but the upgrade
option has been greyed don’t want to do a new install. I want to restore existing
installation.

What should I do?

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So here is the answer:

You can't do a 'repair install' because you need to launch the Vista DVD
from within Windows, not, as you have been doing, booting straight from the
DVD; that is why the 'upgrade' is greyed out.

If you cannot launch Vista and none of the fix variants will work a new
install is the only other option.

To save problems in future it is actually a good idea to image the hard
drive, using program like True Image. What I do is install operating system, download all updates, check system I working okay for a day or two, activate system, then create image of the whole drive/partition. Any time I get a problem I can re-image the drive/partition quickly and be up and running without much inconvenience. And minor fixes are done by using any registry repair tool, there are plenty of them on the market today.

Regards,
Carl