empty folder

[omega]

"Wrong" keys for Win98X may be perfectly normal for XP. Remember, Win9X
does not even use Services, PCHealth, Etc. Most of those bogus keys you
listed are already in the XP registry.

NO program should create keys like that, upon mere launch. If the keys
do not exist, it has no business creating that. It is irrelevant here what
OS. No need to even bring up the fact that many XP systems do not have
Messenger, Office, Outlook, and yet it created all kinds of keys and values
for those products.

I rate SafeXP 7/10 for Windows XP. It's perfectly well behaved on my XP
system. The downgrade is mostly due to the unimaginative interface.

It is extremely BADLY behaved. Right from the start, it is outlandishly
irresponsible for it to make all kinds of changes, without being asked.
And it is as far as can be from meeting the most important requirement
in a "tweaker" program, a log and a backup of each registry change it
makes.

 

[ms]

This might sound (and be) stupid, but did you try the windows key together
with the F key to call the Find-function ?
Or the F3 key ?

Probably you mean in Windows Explorer. I just did the above, it just opens a
recent text file in 2XExplorer. I never use Windows Explorer, only to change file
associations. I always use the 2X shell. But do use the start menu Find function.

Mike Sa

 

[Rod]

Probably you mean in Windows Explorer. I just did the above, it just
opens a recent text file in 2XExplorer. I never use Windows Explorer,
only to change file associations. I always use the 2X shell. But do
use the start menu Find function.

I meant in general, not in Windows Explorer.
The windowskey+F always brings up Find for me, I'm not sure how the F3 key
exactly works, but minimizing my open windows, left-clicking on the desktop
once to get focus there and pressing F3 also brings up Find for me.
But I guess in your case the whole Find function has disappeared.

 

[omega]

I use the Find function constantly.

One of the places the SafeXP thing writes to, and specifically where I
suspect the startmenu problem might be involved, it's to both of these
keys:

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

I'm about 97% sure that you could simply delete those entire keys.

Back them up first. For now, put the backups in a central place; like
on the root of C. This is a good time to commit to learning the command
to restore a reg file in DOS. It's simply: "regedit filename.reg."

You might lose a couple of minor preferences in doing that. Such as
items that you previously might have chosen to not be on your startmenu
(msie favorites, recent docs, Windows update), and things like CD
autoplay. You could just put whatever prefs back later, using Tweakui.

 

[ms]

I use the Find function constantly.

One of the places the SafeXP thing writes to, and specifically where I
suspect the startmenu problem might be involved, it's to both of these
keys:

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

I'm about 97% sure that you could simply delete those entire keys.

Back them up first. For now, put the backups in a central place; like
on the root of C. This is a good time to commit to learning the command
to restore a reg file in DOS. It's simply: "regedit filename.reg."

You might lose a couple of minor preferences in doing that. Such as
items that you previously might have chosen to not be on your startmenu
(msie favorites, recent docs, Windows update), and things like CD
autoplay. You could just put whatever prefs back later, using Tweakui.

Whether this modifies the above? An update- I looked in that key,
NoFind was a 1, as you mentioned before about double negative, I changed it to a
0, (not nofind *is* find), but not in my case. Still no Find, even after (hot)
reboot.

I will review and post back. Deleting the key seems somewhat scary, but may be the
easiest alternative.

I'll post to windows ng, hope to get better answer than "reinstall". A 7 year old
registry can be pretty fragile.

Mike Sa

 

[omega]

One of the places the SafeXP thing writes to, and specifically where I
suspect the startmenu problem might be involved, it's to both of these
keys:

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

I'm about 97% sure that you could simply delete those entire keys.

I will review and post back. Deleting the key seems somewhat scary, but may be the
easiest alternative.

Nothing to lose in deleting them, if you back them up. Worst that can
possibly happen is that you need to restore them back. And I rate the
likelihood of that necessity rather small. I could test on my own machine,
to speak more certainly, but don't want to log off and reboot, etc, at
the moment. And mainly: it'd be good for you to know how to back up and
restore a reg key.

 

[omega]

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

Whether this modifies the above? An update- I looked in that key,
NoFind was a 1, as you mentioned before about double negative, I changed it to a
0, (not nofind *is* find), but not in my case. Still no Find, even after (hot)
reboot.

I hadn't yesterday thought to mention that HKLM one. You could look in that
one as well, see if it contains a Nofind=01.

 

[ms]

omega wrote:

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

Whether this modifies the above? An update- I looked in that key,
NoFind was a 1, as you mentioned before about double negative, I changed it to a
0, (not nofind *is* find), but not in my case. Still no Find, even after (hot)
reboot.

I hadn't yesterday thought to mention that HKLM one. You could look in that
one as well, see if it contains a Nofind=01.

Good news!!! Thanks much for the above, I went back to the second key and sure
enough it was a 1, backed it up, changed to a 0, reboot and Find is back again.
So SafeXP cost me about 4 days of grief.

A housekeeping question you must have solved:
Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.

Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?

Any small util that comes to mind, exe preferred?

Mike Sa

 

[Bob Adkins]

It is extremely BADLY behaved. Right from the start, it is outlandishly
irresponsible for it to make all kinds of changes, without being asked.
And it is as far as can be from meeting the most important requirement
in a "tweaker" program, a log and a backup of each registry change it
makes.

You sound violated. Better send the software police to go arrest them.

-- Bob

 

[jmatt]

Back Up, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322756
The information in this article applies to:
* Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional
* Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition

* Posted via http://www.sixfiles.com/forum

 

[omega]

You sound violated.

I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a service
to others. You, OTOH, use it in the blind, and recommend it with total
disregard for the safety of others. Even after one user has already
had his machine trashed due to it her.

Better send the software police to go arrest them.

What an idiotic comment.

 

[Doc]

Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?

HKLM/Run c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun

will back up registry once each day, but only after a reboot/startup. ie,
if you leave your PC running 24 hours a day then you will need to use a
task scheduler app.

I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups too.
If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5 backups.

 

[omega]

Good news!!! Thanks much for the above, I went back to the second key and sure
enough it was a 1, backed it up, changed to a 0, reboot and Find is back again.

Good to hear you did a successful repair on that. Although it's odd that
you didn't get Find back when you did that earlier. Ah well, at least
it's back now. Btw, that NoFind=01, it wipes out find not just from the
startmenu, but more fully (F3 etc, all gets killed). It's one of the
billions of restriction type settings, for use on public computers. Or
to torture individuals.

So SafeXP cost me about 4 days of grief.

Stick with Tweakui, the one everyone is familiar with. Also look into
Xteq's X-Setup. It is the king, and the model of good behavior. Not
that it won't have some tweaks which might be undesirable, out of the
thousands it offers, but that every one of them is explained, recorded,
and can be easily undone.

A housekeeping question you must have solved:
Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.

Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?

Any small util that comes to mind, exe preferred?

You have two ways to go, but can even do both.

One is the old w95 way, using batch files to regularly make copies of the
system.dat+user.dat. There are a few "programs" that do this. I assume the
WRP you mention is one of them.

The other is to use the inbuilt scanregw. You can increase the number of
backups it makes, past five. The problem with doing this, however, is that
when you want to do a scanregw/restore, then you often won't see your more
recent backups. And have to do extra work at that point, such as first
renaming some of the older .cab backups, to get the display of the more
recent ones.

I recommend periodically going to the folder where the scanregw backups
are stored, and archiving some of those cabs. Do a find for rb*.cab to
find them. You can change where they are stored on drive, to a more
accessible place, if you need to, by editing the "BackupDirectory= "
line in scanreg.ini.

I was answering a different question than what you asked. It's because
I encourage occasionally storing some longer-term backups. It would have
been good for a situation such as that SafeXp thing you ran, which likely
wrote a bunch of krapp to your Services key, making Windows startup a big
mess, and which is something I think would be very difficult to fix by
direct edit.

But for your question, how to get more frequent backups. The "scanregw/
autorun" routine, its rules are to back up the registry once per day or
once per boot, whichever is longer. So if you're only rebooting once a
week, then that means only one backup a week. You could just take the
manual habit of hitting scanregw from your Run... box, to make more regular
backups. It only takes a minute.

But you want something that is fully automatic, and does a reg backup
say once per day?

There's an array of available scheduler utilities... Do you already run any
schedulers? If so, then it'd be choosing a reg backup command that could
then be entered in with them.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

"Wrong" keys for Win98X may be perfectly normal for XP. Remember,
Win9X does not even use Services, PCHealth, Etc.

It sounds like the author of SafeXP should have remembered that. It's
website claims it has been tested under Windows 98 and is compatible.

Most of those bogus keys you listed are already in the XP registry.

A lot of them aren't. Even if they don't cause the problems/crashes
mentioned before, why would an app designed to improve system
performance add superfluous bloat to the XP registry?

 

[omega]

Now that all things are working again, I will back up registry (WRP- Shep's old
favorite). But that takes a conscious effort, I usually forget, and every time I
wish I had a backup to use, it is way too old to use.

First, here is mskb about scanregw
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/EN-US/

Commandline switches available
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184023/EN-US/

Commands related to doing the backup

scanregw :: gives you a prompt first
scanregw /backup :: does backup with no prompt
scanregw /autorun :: does backup with no prompt, max 1x per day

Maybe automatic reg save at shutdown or bootup? As a concept, advice?

The scanregw command in your startup is already preset to where it checks,
on each bootup, to make sure there is backup for that day. Do you need more
often? If so, then you could use one of the commands above, entered into a
scheduler utility.

 

[bambam]

I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a
service to others.

I for one thank you for your time and effort. I downloaded SafeXP and
GameXP recently, but had not yet tried them, now I never will.
Cheers.

 

[ms]

Good to hear you did a successful repair on that. Although it's odd that
you didn't get Find back when you did that earlier.

Maybe I wasn't clear- yes, I did get Find back during the day in one of the reg
restores, but in trying to fix the password issue I rebooted several times, by the
time I decided to stay with Find, and then focus on password, the find reg was gone.

Ah well, at least

it's back now. Btw, that NoFind=01, it wipes out find not just from the
startmenu, but more fully (F3 etc, all gets killed). It's one of the
billions of restriction type settings, for use on public computers. Or
to torture individuals.


Stick with Tweakui, the one everyone is familiar with. Also look into
Xteq's X-Setup. It is the king, and the model of good behavior. Not
that it won't have some tweaks which might be undesirable, out of the
thousands it offers, but that every one of them is explained, recorded,
and can be easily undone.

I had used X-Setup last about a year ago. When I ran it yesterday, it opened with
a different screen than I'd seen before, my shortcut no longer worked right, so I
uninstalled. Maybe it just needs reinstall.

You have two ways to go, but can even do both.

One is the old w95 way, using batch files to regularly make copies of the
system.dat+user.dat. There are a few "programs" that do this. I assume the
WRP you mention is one of them.

The other is to use the inbuilt scanregw. You can increase the number of
backups it makes, past five. The problem with doing this, however, is that
when you want to do a scanregw/restore, then you often won't see your more
recent backups. And have to do extra work at that point, such as first
renaming some of the older .cab backups, to get the display of the more
recent ones.

I recommend periodically going to the folder where the scanregw backups
are stored, and archiving some of those cabs. Do a find for rb*.cab to
find them. You can change where they are stored on drive, to a more
accessible place, if you need to, by editing the "BackupDirectory= "
line in scanreg.ini.

How do you choose which ones to store? IIRC, a reg cab even a week old can be
somewhat risky to run because things have changed.

I was answering a different question than what you asked. It's because
I encourage occasionally storing some longer-term backups. It would have
been good for a situation such as that SafeXp thing you ran, which likely
wrote a bunch of krapp to your Services key, making Windows startup a big
mess, and which is something I think would be very difficult to fix by
direct edit.

I opened the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\ key in RegEditPlus. The list
of folders in the left panel- I'm not familiar with them to say something has been
added. I planned to list the folders here for your comment, but how to do it?

But for your question, how to get more frequent backups. The "scanregw/
autorun" routine, its rules are to back up the registry once per day or
once per boot, whichever is longer. So if you're only rebooting once a
week, then that means only one backup a week. You could just take the
manual habit of hitting scanregw from your Run... box, to make more regular
backups. It only takes a minute.

But you want something that is fully automatic, and does a reg backup
say once per day?

That sounds about right.

There's an array of available scheduler utilities... Do you already run any
schedulers? If so, then it'd be choosing a reg backup command that could
then be entered in with them.

I'll look into the above, I shut down each evening, cold boot each morning.

Mike Sa

 

[ms]

HKLM/Run c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun

will back up registry once each day, but only after a reboot/startup. ie,
if you leave your PC running 24 hours a day then you will need to use a
task scheduler app.

I find it very handy to keep more than the default 5 registry backups too.
If you need it, I can post the method to change the default 5 backups.

Thanks, that will be handy. Since you use it, how do you keep track of them like
Karen mentioned?

Mike Sa

 

[Bob Adkins]

I gave of my time to record factual logs, and post them, to reveal
what this horrifically behaved program does when it is run. As a service
to others. You, OTOH, use it in the blind, and recommend it with total
disregard for the safety of others.

You speak as though the survival of mankind is at stake. You need to get a
life outside the binary world, Karen.

If it will make you feel better, I take full responsibility for my 7/10
rating. If anyone is killed or maimed by SafeXP, you can hold me personally
responsible.

Meanwhile, by registry is JUST FINE.

-- Bob

 

[Bob Adkins]

It sounds like the author of SafeXP should have remembered that. It's
website claims it has been tested under Windows 98 and is compatible.


A lot of them aren't. Even if they don't cause the problems/crashes
mentioned before, why would an app designed to improve system
performance add superfluous bloat to the XP registry?

Q,

Most were already there in my registry because I previously used Xteq
X-Setup. X-Setup also adds registry entries. Adding registry entries is the
best way to turn off XP services. It's a small price to pay.

Look, nobody likes registry bloat. I go to great lengths to keep my registry
slim and trim. Adding a few lines to a 10,000 line registry is preferable to
launching the Services utility to ride herd on a ton of XP services.

I'm sure it's getting harder and harder for Freeware authors to compromise
and maintain compatibility between current and legacy versions of Windows.
Differences are getting wider with each new release or service pack.

To be safe, maybe users of old versions of Windows should stick to old
utilities and avoid anything with "XP" in the name. I'm sure there are lots
of compromises in a program to make it work on both XP and 98 registries.

-- Bob