Registry Compaction

[Guest]

Hello,

I just tried to upgrade Symantec PCAnywhere on my Windows 2000 Pro machine
and it blew up my System hive. What is the best way to compact my registry
and protect myself from any future problems? I had to totally reinstall and
restore from a backup (which I made prior to attempting the upgrade).

 

[Dave Patrick]

Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Backup, then choose ERD, then if you check
the box for "Also backup....", then the reg will also be backed up to
%systemroot%\repair\RegBack
leaving the
%systemroot%\repair\
directory files intact as original installation. This should compact the
hive during the backup.

Then compare the size of the system hive found in;
%systemroot%\repair\RegBack
with that of the in use hive found in;
%systemroot%\system32\config

If you see an improvement in size then you can replace registry hives from
within the recovery console by copying the files from
%systemroot%\repair\regback
to
%systemroot%\system32\config
(the system hive is all that should be necessary at this point)

To start the Recovery Console, start the computer from the Windows 2000
Setup CD or the Windows 2000 Setup floppy disks. If you do not have Setup
floppy disks and your computer cannot start from the Windows 2000 Setup CD,
use another Windows 2000-based computer to create the Setup floppy disks. At
the "Welcome to Setup" screen. Press F10 or R to repair a Windows 2000
installation, and then press C to use the Recovery Console. The Recovery
Console then prompts you for the administrator password. If you do not have
the correct password, Recovery Console does not allow access to the
computer. If an incorrect password is entered three times, the Recovery
Console quits and restarts the computer. Note If the registry is corrupted
or missing or no valid installations are found, the Recovery Console starts
in the root of the startup volume without requiring a password. You cannot
access any folders, but you can carry out commands such as chkdsk, fixboot,
and fixmbr for limited disk repairs. Once the password has been validated,
you have full access to the Recovery Console, but limited access to the hard
disk. You can only access the following folders on your computer: drive
root, %systemroot% or %windir%

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hello,
|
| I just tried to upgrade Symantec PCAnywhere on my Windows 2000 Pro machine
| and it blew up my System hive. What is the best way to compact my
registry
| and protect myself from any future problems? I had to totally reinstall
and
| restore from a backup (which I made prior to attempting the upgrade).
|
| --
| Thank you,
|
| Robert

 

[Dodo]

=?Utf-8?B?Um9iZXJ0IE1jQ2FydGVy?= wrote on 06 feb 2006:

I just tried to upgrade Symantec PCAnywhere on my Windows 2000 Pro
machine and it blew up my System hive. What is the best way to
compact my registry and protect myself from any future problems? I
had to totally reinstall and restore from a backup (which I made prior
to attempting the upgrade).

Just responding to your last sentence!

If you get this error:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

You could then first try to reset it to the previous version.

In your \WINNT\system32\config directory you'll see a file SYSTEM and a
file SYSTEM.ALT
If the file SYSTEM.ALT is (slightly) older than SYSTEM, you can then rename
SYSTEM to SYSTEM.old and copy SYSTEM.ALT to SYSTEM

Do this from the Recovery Console (boot on the W2k CD and select R and then
C).

This cured the same error here and it also worked on a friend's computer
where the same error occurred. You only have to reinstall all hard and
software that was added after date/time of your SYSTEM.ALT file.

And you still have to find a way to make your system more stable again.

But, it could save you the trouble of having to reinstall the OS and
applications again from scratch.