P
Paul Smith
A quick word of warning for anyone thinking about installing Longhorn
Transformation Pack (available from Tech Connect Magazine)...
I've had two people e-mail me about their computer refusing to boot after
installing it. - Looks like the XP Resource managed to climb up onto the
first page on Google for a lot of things...
Anyway I took the plunge and went and downloaded it to see what it does,
after it started going on about the Windows File Protection I knew I was in
for some "fun". Anyway proceeded to install it and rebooted my machine,
after logging on the machine immediately logged off and rebooted. Upon
starting Windows I was presented with the ntoskrnl failed to load error.
Not good.
Luckily I had an RC of x64 on the machine so I could boot that to check out
the system folder (without going into old school mode) and hunt down these
missing files. Found them, luckily LTP backed up the files into
system32\LHTrans so I copied them back. Success Windows booted! I logged
on and was just presented with my wallpaper - ok so I fire up explorer
through Task Manager and I get a barely usable desktop. I run System
Restore and get the system back to normal.
Anyway for those who have found themselves in the same situation - here's
the quick run down on how to correct it.
1) Insert the Windows XP CD that came with your computer into your CD-ROM
drive.
2) Either turn on or reboot your machine.
3) While booting you should get a message saying "Press any key to boot from
the CD-ROM drive (or words to that effect), go ahead and press any key. (If
you don't see below)
4) This will boot the machine up using the Windows XP CD-ROM, when it's
finished loading press R to load the recovery console, you may have to
select your OS (Windows XP....) and login using the administrator password.
5) You should now be presented with a command prompt, type in copy
C:\WINDOWS\system32\LHTrans\ C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and press enter. This
should now proceed and copy the files back into Windows' system directory.
6) Type Exit and/or reboot your machine.
That's the hard bit out of the way.
7) Login as normal, you may now notice that you get your wallpaper but
nothing else loads up. Press and hold CTRL+ALT then press DEL.
8) You should now get the Task Manager pop up, click on File then click on
New Task (Run...)
9) Type in explorer and press enter. Your machine should now continue to
finish loading up.
10) Go to System Restore (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System
Tools -> System Restore) you'll want to now restore your computer to a point
in time before Longhorn Transformation Pack 9.0. Your machine will now
reboot and fingers crossed be back to normal.
---I'm not getting "Press any key to boot from the CD-ROM drive" this is
likely due to the CD-ROM being after the HDD in the boot sequence, basically
your computer has a boot order - if the HDD is before the CD-ROM drive then
it will have priority over the CD-ROM drive and load first, you'll need to
go into your computer's BIOS, typically by pressing DEL when prompted on the
first or second screen after turning on, it may say something like 'Press
DEL to enter setup' - consult your computer's manual for more help on this.
Once in there you'll need to look for the boot order, it will typically be
three options, first, second and third each with separate options such as
Floppy (FDD), CD, Hard disk (HDD), you'll want to make sure that the CD-ROM
drive is before the HDD. Once done save and reboot.
For those of you that don't have System Restore enabled. I'm guessing this
application changes a lot of system files - rather then actually using the
built in theme system in XP, it goes over and hard writes the actual system
files it also changes the system registry and puts a few .bat files into
start-up. So your best bet would be to contact the author to see if they
have the complete list of changes made.
Life Lesson #7 - System Restore rocks.
--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/
http://windows.dasmirnov.net/ Windows XP Resource Site.
*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*
Transformation Pack (available from Tech Connect Magazine)...
I've had two people e-mail me about their computer refusing to boot after
installing it. - Looks like the XP Resource managed to climb up onto the
first page on Google for a lot of things...
Anyway I took the plunge and went and downloaded it to see what it does,
after it started going on about the Windows File Protection I knew I was in
for some "fun". Anyway proceeded to install it and rebooted my machine,
after logging on the machine immediately logged off and rebooted. Upon
starting Windows I was presented with the ntoskrnl failed to load error.
Not good.
Luckily I had an RC of x64 on the machine so I could boot that to check out
the system folder (without going into old school mode) and hunt down these
missing files. Found them, luckily LTP backed up the files into
system32\LHTrans so I copied them back. Success Windows booted! I logged
on and was just presented with my wallpaper - ok so I fire up explorer
through Task Manager and I get a barely usable desktop. I run System
Restore and get the system back to normal.
Anyway for those who have found themselves in the same situation - here's
the quick run down on how to correct it.
1) Insert the Windows XP CD that came with your computer into your CD-ROM
drive.
2) Either turn on or reboot your machine.
3) While booting you should get a message saying "Press any key to boot from
the CD-ROM drive (or words to that effect), go ahead and press any key. (If
you don't see below)
4) This will boot the machine up using the Windows XP CD-ROM, when it's
finished loading press R to load the recovery console, you may have to
select your OS (Windows XP....) and login using the administrator password.
5) You should now be presented with a command prompt, type in copy
C:\WINDOWS\system32\LHTrans\ C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and press enter. This
should now proceed and copy the files back into Windows' system directory.
6) Type Exit and/or reboot your machine.
That's the hard bit out of the way.
7) Login as normal, you may now notice that you get your wallpaper but
nothing else loads up. Press and hold CTRL+ALT then press DEL.
8) You should now get the Task Manager pop up, click on File then click on
New Task (Run...)
9) Type in explorer and press enter. Your machine should now continue to
finish loading up.
10) Go to System Restore (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System
Tools -> System Restore) you'll want to now restore your computer to a point
in time before Longhorn Transformation Pack 9.0. Your machine will now
reboot and fingers crossed be back to normal.
---I'm not getting "Press any key to boot from the CD-ROM drive" this is
likely due to the CD-ROM being after the HDD in the boot sequence, basically
your computer has a boot order - if the HDD is before the CD-ROM drive then
it will have priority over the CD-ROM drive and load first, you'll need to
go into your computer's BIOS, typically by pressing DEL when prompted on the
first or second screen after turning on, it may say something like 'Press
DEL to enter setup' - consult your computer's manual for more help on this.
Once in there you'll need to look for the boot order, it will typically be
three options, first, second and third each with separate options such as
Floppy (FDD), CD, Hard disk (HDD), you'll want to make sure that the CD-ROM
drive is before the HDD. Once done save and reboot.
For those of you that don't have System Restore enabled. I'm guessing this
application changes a lot of system files - rather then actually using the
built in theme system in XP, it goes over and hard writes the actual system
files it also changes the system registry and puts a few .bat files into
start-up. So your best bet would be to contact the author to see if they
have the complete list of changes made.
Life Lesson #7 - System Restore rocks.
--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/
http://windows.dasmirnov.net/ Windows XP Resource Site.
*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*
