If you are having major issues trying to repair a windows vista / windows 7 installation, the best way to fix it is to repair upgrade it, however you might get the following errors, they need to be worked through to be able to perform an upgrade as you cannot do repair installs anymore.

II found that if windows will not boot using any of the options in the boot menu you can then set the client PC into bootdebug mode by pressing F10 and the correct entry, then start  debugging on the Server machine, connect the client PC physically with a firewire cable. This allows the client PC to boot using i assume an alternative kernel.

NB: you can put the Client PC in to bootdebug mode and connected by firewire cable by pressing F10

after you login "an unauthorized change was made to windows" message appears with the 2 options:

1. "learn more online"
2. "close"

• if you click close you logout
• if you click learn more online it takes you to the windows online genuine advantage validation page. in this case it had failed and would not revalidate

try one or more of the following:

• uninstall the validation update
• change the key
• rearm
• sfc /scannow

NB: to access the explorer, type c:\windows\explorer.exe in to the addressbar

didnt work, so addition

go to c:\windows\system32 and set the read only bit for that folder and all sub folders

wga diag does not run in safe mode

the tokens removal instruction might or might not have an effect on the "not enough quota is available to process this command" error.

If windows loads in restricted mode the following should allow upgrading

• boot in to normal mode or debug mode
• click learn more online (internet connection not required)
• run c:\windows\explorer.exe from address bar, you might be able to run d:\setup.exe from the address bar
• run upgrade from vista setup disk, same service pack version might be required.
• complete the upgrade

NB: If you get "not enough quota is available to process this command" this might be overcome by trying different methods of accessing the setup.exe on the vista setup disk. ie

• start/run
• my computer / setup.exe
• address bar in internet explorer
• running as an admiinistrator might be required