Where is the registry located?

[Hildegard]

I am trying to figure out why my multiple xp's are not
completely separated. It appears that when I install
program on XP1 it might influence the devices
(visible with the device manager ) on XP2.
In which file or files is the registry stored ?

 

[Alex Nichol]

I am trying to figure out why my multiple xp's are not
completely separated. It appears that when I install
program on XP1 it might influence the devices
(visible with the device manager ) on XP2.
In which file or files is the registry stored ?

The files in windows\system32\config that have no extensions (the others
are backups of them)

if the two systems are in separate partitions then they should have
different partition numbers in the two boot.ini entries for them.. The
problem you are having can arise if one of them was produced by
'cloning'; and the changed partition number was not reflected in the
'mounted devices' in the registry : you can find that you run regedit
and it is actually referring to the files in the other partition.

Run regedit and open to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices
and delete all the DoSDevices\x: lines in the right page. Close regedit
and immediately restart so that enumeration of devices is done over.
I would do this when booted to each system

You may then have to readjust letters for things like CD, and just
possibly edit the DosDevices line for the partition with Windows to put
its letter back as it was

 

[Hildegard]

As I didn't change the boot.ini file after cloning, the boot.ini file for
TEST contains
the same partition number as PROD namely 1.
According to the MAP command on the recovery console,
the PROD partition is number 1 and TEST is number 2. I believed that there
is no need to change boot.ini as the other primary(alternate) partition is
hidden by
bootmagic/bootmanager, therefore there would be no way that files of the
other partition could be accessed.
Just to make sure, are the following statements true ?:
After Cloning a XP-partition, the partition number in the boot.ini file must
be changed
to the new partition number.
The files of a hidden partition are still accessible by the active
partition. (strange !)
Additional question:
Are there any other actions to do, besides updating boot.ini, when cloning
an XP-partition ?
Now that my system ran for some time with the wrong boot.ini file, will the
procedere
proposed with regedit below be necessary to be carried out ?
tx, in advance.

 

[Alex Nichol]

As I didn't change the boot.ini file after cloning, the boot.ini file for
TEST contains
the same partition number as PROD namely 1.

In that case you are actually booting the same copy of windows - the
boot.ini entry is saying 'don't bother any more on this partition, go
look in partition 1'