Editing Backup Registry?

[stand_58]

As I understand it, the XP registry essentially consists of 5 database
files. When a registry editor is started, it looks for those 5 files and
presents them to the user as a fairly familiar view.

When the registry is backed up, say by using the repair console to copy
those 5 files elsewhere, is there any way to look at (and modify) those
files with a registry editor?

I understand that one can "play with" the live registry, then restore the
backups when screwups are made, but is there a way to "play with" the backup
registry?

Thanks

 

[Sharon F]

As I understand it, the XP registry essentially consists of 5 database
files. When a registry editor is started, it looks for those 5 files and
presents them to the user as a fairly familiar view.

When the registry is backed up, say by using the repair console to copy
those 5 files elsewhere, is there any way to look at (and modify) those
files with a registry editor?

I understand that one can "play with" the live registry, then restore the
backups when screwups are made, but is there a way to "play with" the backup
registry?

Thanks

The database files are referred to as "hives." These can be loaded and
unloaded. A common use for load/unload is to take damaged hives from a
"broken" XP, load them into the registry editor. Manually repair them with
editing. Then unload and replace the "broken" hives with the repaired hives
on the original machine.

As an example, here's a link to a page on Ramesh's site:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm
It is a quick summary of fixing a registry value caused by a specific
problem using Bart's PE CD and registry editor.

Rather than messing around with the system's backup copies of the registry,
why not create and use "extra" copies instead. A registry backup program
such as ERUNT can be used to create those copies.

CAUTION: Be very careful. Suggest doing some research before messing around
too much. There are books that address the ins and outs of the XP registry
and a search for "load unload xp registry hives" on the internet and
Microsoft site uncovers many good references too.

Also: One way to price down on the "pay" part that usually follows "play"
-- imaging software. Create an image of a working system. Play. Then play
and if things get broken, finish playing and restore the system from the
image.

 

[stand_58]

<<< Lots of snipping>>>

Thank you very much Sharon, you set me onto exactly what I asked for.

My story is that I have a computer that is breathing its last, (probably a
regulator dead on the motherboard, leaky capacitors, etc.) It's 6 years old,
old and slow even when it was running well. Having to clear the CMOS before
every cold boot ain't the way to live. Anyway, it has XP Pro on it, along
with tons of files, not so well organized, either.

I bought a new computer with XP Media Center Edition on a huge C: drive,
shrank the system partition with some linux stuff, made more partitions out
of the empty space, and now would like to transfer the XP Pro build to the
same lettered partition on the new machine as was on the old. I decided to
do this 'cause the files and settings transfer wizard just plain doesn't
work on the new machine, either it just goes on for hours and hours,
supposedly moving files and settings over, with the disk not being accessed
and the progress bar not moving, or the wizard goes for an hour and then
crashes.

So I essentially copied over the whole partition to an external drive and
then to the new machine (using a Windows ME boot and xxcopy to copy the
files to an external USB drive, and the Media Center edition to get the
files to the "new" partition on the new machine), did a repair install of XP
Pro with SP2 slipstreamed, and what I have on the new machine (along with a
healthy OEM version of what feels like somebody else's Media Center edition
computer) is a very crippled version of my XP pro setup. It won't save any
of the settings it is willing to allow me to make, it denies the existence
of all but the default theme, etc. etc. I figure if I can manually touch up
the registry, I ought to be able to get enough of an XP Pro install running
close enough to right that I can consign the old machine to the recycler.

At this point, what I'd like are some hints as to where stuff is stashed in
the registry -- what hives to look at, what keys and values to copy over
from the Media Center registry, which to copy from the old machine, and
which to just leave alone from the repair install.

I have a decent amount of registered shareware on the old machine, for
example, I'm hoping that with the correct seeing, thinking, and typing
skills and judicious exporting and importing, I can make this new machine
sort of a clone of the old one -- functionally if not physically.

Any hints that can be offered would be most welcome.

 

[Sharon F]

<<< Lots of snipping>>>

Thank you very much Sharon, you set me onto exactly what I asked for.

My story is that I have a computer that is breathing its last, (probably a
regulator dead on the motherboard, leaky capacitors, etc.) It's 6 years old,
old and slow even when it was running well. Having to clear the CMOS before
every cold boot ain't the way to live. Anyway, it has XP Pro on it, along
with tons of files, not so well organized, either.

I bought a new computer with XP Media Center Edition on a huge C: drive,
shrank the system partition with some linux stuff, made more partitions out
of the empty space, and now would like to transfer the XP Pro build to the
same lettered partition on the new machine as was on the old. I decided to
do this 'cause the files and settings transfer wizard just plain doesn't
work on the new machine, either it just goes on for hours and hours,
supposedly moving files and settings over, with the disk not being accessed
and the progress bar not moving, or the wizard goes for an hour and then
crashes.

So I essentially copied over the whole partition to an external drive and
then to the new machine (using a Windows ME boot and xxcopy to copy the
files to an external USB drive, and the Media Center edition to get the
files to the "new" partition on the new machine), did a repair install of XP
Pro with SP2 slipstreamed, and what I have on the new machine (along with a
healthy OEM version of what feels like somebody else's Media Center edition
computer) is a very crippled version of my XP pro setup. It won't save any
of the settings it is willing to allow me to make, it denies the existence
of all but the default theme, etc. etc. I figure if I can manually touch up
the registry, I ought to be able to get enough of an XP Pro install running
close enough to right that I can consign the old machine to the recycler.

At this point, what I'd like are some hints as to where stuff is stashed in
the registry -- what hives to look at, what keys and values to copy over
from the Media Center registry, which to copy from the old machine, and
which to just leave alone from the repair install.

I have a decent amount of registered shareware on the old machine, for
example, I'm hoping that with the correct seeing, thinking, and typing
skills and judicious exporting and importing, I can make this new machine
sort of a clone of the old one -- functionally if not physically.

Any hints that can be offered would be most welcome.

I think you might be better off trying to move the installation with a tool
designed to do that - something that will clone a drive, for example. You
will still run into having to do a repair install of XP and applying all
updates that have been released since the service pack level of the media
used to do the repair install.

Once XP is moved, uninstall unwanted items and start organizing your
"stuff."

Regardless of how you move things, you'll need to re-activate XP due to the
hardware changes, the new disk layout and repair install. And you'll have
to jump through the WGA hoops as well.

I don't know this will all fit into the other operating systems that you're
multi-booting. Perhaps a tool such as BootIt Next Generation from Terabyte
Unlimited that can hide different partitions at boot time.

I hesitate to recommend tweaking the registry in regards to information
about installed applications. There are usually too many to make this
feasible and many are "masked" with unique IDs within the registry
structure. Registry editing in the manner you propose is fine for
re-applying tweaks or fixing specific keys but that's about it.

I've hesitated replying because I really don't know how you're going to
handle the multi-boot situation and get XP moved without breaking something
belonging to those other operating systems. I've multi-booted different
versions of Windows but have not varied the "flavor" of the operating
systems as you have. And it's always unpleasant to recommend "undoing" work
already done or consider that the whole process might break work already
done.

 

[Brains,None]

Dear Stand_58...

You may be better off using ghosting software to copy your hard drive
over to the new one in an image mode. That way, you will get an exact
copy. However, there are issues with the HAL (Hardware Abstraction
Layer) that once XP is set up, it is customized to the old motherboard.
There are ways around it, such as just before you go down, deinstall
every device in device manager, and shutdown, ghost, and then when the
os goes to reinstall everything, it *may* do it right.

Your mileage will vary, please look up this option and all it's pros and
cons. We bought a package for one of our users, Laplink pcmover...
have not done it yet, but it's supposed to work. however, you know what
sales people are like.... ;-)

good luck.. let us know how you did it, and what happened.. make a
backup of your old hd for oops recoveries...

j.

 

[stand_58]

To both Sharon and the clearly misnamed Brains,None:

Thank you again for your responses.

Amazingly, I've actually made some progress. The media center edition that
came with the machine is undamaged on the C: drive. At this point, aside
from the tedium of booting into one, then the other, I find that the build
on C: is a useful way of working on the H: drive with the crippled XP Pro
installation. I do something to the H: registry, check to see if I've done
any damage (failure to boot, loss of some capability, etc. etc.), and if all
is OK and I've made progress, I get into the C: drive with a boot to Media
Center edition and copy the six config files to a backup location. Then I
go back to H: and make more registry changes.

I built a BartPE disk and used it to study the registries. Discovered that
while some of the places that the software is listed looked right, some
looked pretty sparse. So I did a bunch of registry exports from the dying
machine, from HKLM and HKU, and imported as much of HKU as I could. That
helped a lot. The crippled install now remembers some of my settings. I
can change themes, it remembers that I don't want to hide system files and
folders, it allows me to lock and unlock the taskbar and remembers that I
want a quick launch toolbar. That's the good news. The bad news is that
much of the hardware on the machine is not recognized, and the XP Pro
install seems kind of willfully stupid in declining to do that recognition.
I suppose I could do another repair install now and see if that helps. I'm
missing the sheet on my desktop properties that lets me choose wallpaper,
which is surprising to me, but that'll be tracked down eventually.

Before I do that, I'm back to studying the registry. I assume that HKLM
from the Media Center installation on C: will have better information about
the machine than what comes from the old machine with the many years' old
ABIT motherboard. The XP pro install may have accepted some of that stuff,
but it also started throwing out messages about licensing. I'll try it
subkey by subkey and find out what works and what doesn't.

Sometimes I feel like one of those infamous Indian mathematicians who works
out the value of Pi to hundreds of decimal places with a piece of charcoal
on a slate floor. What I have on the H: drive now seems capable of some
work, I can get at my old tax files, for example.

The other surprise to me is that the files and settings transfer wizard just
doesn't work anymore for me. I suspect that when I run it on the old and
dying machine, even though it tells me that it's done the proper job, that
there's something not right with the file. There's an unsupported Microsoft
tool out there that is supposed to allow peeling that onion apart, but I
wasn't able to figure out its command syntax, and I am not convinced it
would do me any good anyway with a crippled registry. Eventually I hope to
apply those files and settings to the Media Center build (which was my first
try that failed and thus set me off on this lunatic quest I'm on).

I'll report on anything significant. So far the only thing I've noticed
that's important is that permissions need to be assigned sometimes pretty
locally to enable importing anything to the registry.

 

[Sharon F]

I'll report on anything significant. So far the only thing I've noticed
that's important is that permissions need to be assigned sometimes pretty
locally to enable importing anything to the registry.

I'm glad you've breathed some life into this but you've spent hours on it.
I wouldn't have the patience. I would have torn the setup down and started
over.

Also agree with you (emphatically) that the hardware info from the old XP
should not be introduced to the new MCE machine. Strive to keep hardware
info true to the platform and system that you're working with. As you know,
the operating system can't work with hardware that just isn't there (the
old PC). It has to deal with what IS there.