If you have bought a computer recently chances are that you have some version of Vista installed, much like they do every time a new version comes out. Along with Vista, some companies have a “recovery” partition instead of giving you a recovery disk, or if you’re one of the many unlucky people, you didn’t get either. A recovery partition is only good if you know how to boot from it, and will disappear if you format your hard drive. What do you do if you have to repair your Vista installation but do not have a disk or partition?

Well, with Vista SP1, a “recovery disk” creator was implemented but can be a pain to use if you do not know what you are doing, and does not help if you can’t boot into your computer. For you who do not have a Vista recovery partition or disc, I have created and uploaded a recovery disk ISO image that is freely available for you to burn and use.

If you do not know how to burn an image, below are instructions on how to burn one with a free, small program called ImgBurn. Please note that Nero does not burn this bootable ISO properly, so I highly suggest you follow the ImgBurn instructions!

VistaRecovery.iso

This Windows Vista Recovery disk will enable you to fix an installation of Windows Vista. This will NOT install a new copy or validate invalid installations.

To install with ImgBurn:

1. Open up ImgBurn.
2. Click the open folder icon and browse to the place where you downloaded the ISO file.
3. Click on the icon where the file is going to the disk.
4. The disk will burn.
5. When it says “Operation Successfully Completed” your disk is finished.
6. The disk is ready to use!

After many days and sleepless nights, I have reinstalled Windows XP back on to my laptop, all in the name of gaming (and music creation). The funniest part of this is that my legal copy of Windows is no longer valid, due to the fact that I have reinstalled too many times. I’d like to call that on Microsoft’s part

In any case, I needed a clean install of Windows on here, as per the three month refresher cycle it seems to need when under intensive use. I would love to get rid of Windows entirely from my computers. But I am forced to submit to their shit-for-code OS because they are unfortunately the commonplace and there are a few programs that I use/games that I play that simply refuse to run on any other OS. That or I cannot find a decent replacement. In this case, however, there is only one single program that I cannot use, and that would be Ableton Live.

Unless I want to move to Mac, I am stuck with Windows (and I have been contemplating getting a Mac lately). Until I have the money though, I will be sticking to my PC. Of course, it’s a toss-up because you can’t tweak and upgrade a Mac like you can a PC, and I love… no, adore the freedom modifying a computer entails.

I suppose the best way for me to do this would to make my gaming rig Windows and my work/art terminal a fancy Mac.

It pisses me off that software that I own, that I have bought, is no longer “genuine”. Between that and Vista, I’m thoroughly done with learning anything Microsoft. Windows XP is the last of the line for me. And I will no longer own a legitimate copy, it seems.