repair process question

[djc]

I had a win2k pro machine that I upgraded to win xp pro sp1a. The machine
was a member of a domain. I had problems with the machine and decided to
just run the repair process. I booted from the cd... choose to let windows
attempt to repair the existing installation.. and away it went. To my
suprise, it prompted me about the workgroup or domain option? why would it
do that? its supposed to just be repairing an exising installation? Thats my
first question. So, I choose to join my domain and not to my suprise it
failed... (I thought there would be issues since the computer account
already existed in active directory.. but it failed saying it could not
locate the domain) It also prompted me for regional settings??? I didn't
think it was supposed to prompt for anything.. its just repairing?

Then I had several (probably 20 to 30) "unregmp2.exe - Entry Point Not
Found" errors.. "The procedure entry point GetIUMS could not be located in
the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL" One after another.. ok. ok. ok.. you
get the picture.

Finally it continues and finishes... reboots. I figured the machine is toast
at this point. But to my suprise it booted ok.. and proceeded to the domain
logon box.. hmm. Still a member of the domain? So I logon and get a blue
screen dump.. I reboot and the second time the logon succeeds but several
different unregmp2.exe - Entry Point not Found errors occur when I do
various things like view 'my computer' properties... So I reinstall sp1 (as
the properties show the OS now to be without sp1) and those error stop.
Seems like its back to normal.

1) it should not have prompted me for anything like regional settings and/or
domain membership during the repair process right?

2) are the unregmp2.exe - Entry Point Not Found errors due to the older
files from the cd overwritting the sp1 files? Shouldn't repair process be
smart enough to use the sp files?

3) anyone else seen this type of happenings during a repair process?

and by the way, the repair process did NOT fix the original problem, which I
am not even going into in this post.

: (

 

[Darrell Gorter[MSFT]]

Hello DJC,
The repair process is not a true upgrade process, so there will be
differences between doing a repair from the CD and running Winnt32 and
upgrading.

1) Normally you should not be prompted for items like regional settings or
for Domain membership. This can happen if there is registry corruption or
permissions are set to tightly for example and the existing settings cannot
be read. Since this was an upgrade, items like Hal and netcard were
migrated along with their settings during the upgrade from Windows 2000 to
Windows XP. Now when you boot to the CD, you will run Hal detection, you
will not migrate the existing hal since it has to be in place before we
load enought to migrate the existing HAL. This affects things like Device
Detection if the hal changes, so if the netcard is detected differently(
depends on the hal detection as well as the whether the netcard driver was
included in the bos or added later, whether it was signed or not) the
network setting may not all migrate. IF they do not the domain may not be
available so the you would be prompted. Other items may include are the
profiles local or roaming for example?

2) Setup always starts from know good files. It does no version checking,
it always replaces with it's files so yes the service pack files or hotfix
files will be replaced with older versions. Setup has no knowledge whether
the newer file will work or is a valid file, so it has to go back to a know
good state.



Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

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