What do the “Change” and “Repair” buttons on the Windows 7 (Enterprise) control panel do?

Question

Navigating to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features and selecting an installed program will display up to three buttons including "Uninstall", "Change", and "Repair". Whether the buttons appear is presumably based on some combination of user permissions (default program status) and availability (Whether the program has implemented an action for this button).

Uninstall is self explanatory and we've probably all used it. What do "Change" and "Repair" do? Is this a universal OS level repair, something at the installer level, or something at the program level like clearing log files?

Answer 1

The actions of the three buttons are up to the individually installed programs.

Uninstall - As you said, self explanatory. It runs the programs uninstaller.

Change - As stated before, this is entirely up to the individual program. Typically, if the installer has multiple optional components, this would allow you to easily install or remove those components. For example, you installed a text editor that includes dictionaries of foreign languages. However, you did not install Spanish. You would use the Change button to relaunch the installer to reach those options.

Repair - As stated before, this is entirely up to the individual program. Generally, the repair option is the least useful, from what I have seen. Typically, it runs the installer again. This would fix any lost or corrupt files.