Tag Archives: registry

Manually restoring corrupt windows 7 registry files

Computer Aid Posted on by

Its happened twice that I’ve received a non-starting windows 7 PC, only to find no hardware problem, and it quickly becomes obvious that the windows 7 registry has become corrupt, and windows 7 recovery is not smart enough to restore the registry.

And in typical Microsoft style, system restore also fails to work.

But I’m used to doing this in XP, where the registry backups are stored in C:\System Volume Information, and its a simple matter to copy and rename the 5 registry files back to c:\windows\system32\config

But Microsoft (in their typical “change for the sake of change” attitude) have decided to move it somewhere else.

I found some mention of a single copy of the registry files in c:\windows\system32\config\RegBack

But that doesn’t help if the backup also gets corrupted.

So far, I’ve been lucky that the copy in the RegBack folder has managed to fix the system… but its a concern to go from automatic multiple registry backups (with windows XP), to a single backup with windows Vista, Windows 7, and presumably Windows 8 )… A decrease in reliability, for no noticeable benefit.

Why I won’t use a ‘Registry Cleaner’

Computer Aid Posted on by

What’s a registry, and why would you want to clean it? Good questions, and I’ll try to answer them.

In older versions of Windows, and today too (in varying degrees), each program (and Windows itself) had to keep some settings that governed how things worked (or didn’t). Windows maintained 2 main file for this purpose, being win.ini and system.ini. Ultimately Microsoft considered this too unwieldy and changed their collective mind (not in the Borg sense 🙂 ) to use a different construct to hold settings. This became the registry. The registry is basically 2 files (for each local user) that is a database. It holds way more info than system.ini and win.ini ever did. Like a good cup of coffee it is dark and mysterious, holding many secrets within.

Because of its complexity it is easy to hide things there. Sure, things are named but what does
“My ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet003Enum NextParentID.2682c4c5.4” mean to you? No, I didn’t make that up and yes, to some degree I do understand what it is.

Who would want to hide things in the registry and why? Many software companies put settings into the registry in an awkward way for 1 very good reason. Protection. Protection against theft of their software (oh yes, it’s their software, not yours), protection of intellectual property and other reasons too.

Now, as to why you’d want to clean it… well, that’s a bit of hocus pocus I think. Many so-called experts claim that over time the registry can become fragmented, filled with junk or holes and perhaps invalid entries. That may be the case but does it need to be ‘cleaned’? Microsoft have never produced a cleaner so it makes me wonder. I’ve never seen them actively promote the use of one either.

One such company is … nah, I’d better not name them but I will discuss my experiences. This company has several accounting software packages on the market. Some of the home versions are relatively cheap, under $100. My wife keeps the home accounts in this product so is rather protective of it and doesn’t like anything happening on her computer. At the time it was the one that I used too.

As was (but no longer is!) my way I decided to test this new program I’d found on the internet. Yep, a registry cleaner. It merrily purported to scan my registry and produced a reports showing all manner of oddities. So many that it was impossible to even guess at the outcome. Hey, maybe it did wonders for the system, but one thing I can say for sure, it broke *******, that program that shall not be named. Clearly, it had embedded an entry in the registry that the cleaner thought had no business being there. One way or another the cleaner broke it, big time! Wifey was NOT happy.

The software would not reinstall claiming it was already installed (most of it least still was) and uninstalling did not allow reinstallation either. There was nothing left but to call their ‘tech support’. At $4.95 per minute (yep, nearly as much as Bill Gates) I got mucked around backwards and forwards. The best line I got was ‘Can you hang on a minute’. No, I can NOT! Grrrr! Anyway, after several minutes they claimed we must have done a certain action (that definitely was not the case), and that was that. Couldn’t use the software and the data was nuked. Not a great outcome 🙁

I try to not base an opinion on one experience, but that was a very bad experience that I don’t intend to go through again.

Registry Cleaners…? (I) just say no!

You have a Blue Ringed Octopus in your PC!

Computer Aid Posted on by

You may think you don’t, but you do – figuratively speaking. It doesn’t have 8 tentacles or live in the water. It’s your registry.

blue ringed octopus

So, what is a registry and what is a Blue Ringed Octopus? As I’ve discussed before, the registry is basically a database where programs (especially Windows) can put various settings.

When I was a kid, nobody (apart from Marine Biologists it seems) had heard of a Blue Ringed Octopus, hereafter referred to as a BRO, but not the sort of bro you’d like to have. I remember the day well. It was a hot summer Saturday. The news reported that some young kid was playing in a rock pool by the ocean when he suddenly and mysteriously, convulsed and died. That kid had found a BRO. Not just found it, but pulled it out of the water and ‘played’ with it. An angry BRO, is a nasty beastie. They are relatively small and would easily fit in the palm of your hand. When they are antagonised they show their characteristic blue rings on the surface of their body. These rings are small (only about 5mm’s or ¼” in diameter and electric blue. Kinda pretty actually. Pretty but deadly. They carry a fatal neurotoxin. Suddenly, everybody in Australia had a quick biology lesson and learned new respect for small creatures.

What has that to do with the registry? Poke at the registry enough without being very careful (and sometimes even while being extremely careful) can get you bitten and your pc becomes unbootable. While many tweaks, fixes and good things can come of manipulating the registry, it can backfire too. Microsoft often issues software fixes that require registry changes but always issue a warning that bad things can happen, and of course if they do, you can be in real strife.

If you want to poke around with a Blue Ringed Octopus, or the registry, be REALLY careful.

keyhook.exe entry point not found

Computer Aid Posted on by

At startup, an Acer PC was displaying a window with: keyhook.exe entry point not found.

There was a lot more text, and a mention of sisbase.dll

Ok, it probably something to do with the motherboard (possibly a mucked-up driver).

The net mentions removing any infection (already done that), and updating the video drivers… did that also.

So I figure: I’ll stop the error by not starting keyhook.exe in the first place!

I know: Its a lazy way out, but the alternative can be very time consuming (and I’ve got 5 other tasks that need to be completed)

So, I start regedit, go to HKLM -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Current Version -> Run

and I delete the “SIS windows keyhook” entry.

Pioneer DVR-111D CD DVD-RW drive. code 19

Computer Aid Posted on by

I got a new DVD-RW (Pioneer DVR-111D) drive, installed it into my “new” office main PC, but after a reboot, the drive was not detected.

The tray ejects, the front panel LED lights up, all the cables, power, etc is correct…

A look at the device manager (control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager) shows that there is some problem with the registry. (an yellow sign, and an error 19).

A quick search finds: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314060

Removing the upperfilters and lowerfilters registry keys did the trick.