PCTech Forums

i used the microsoft fix for a"stop..."error on my pc. i finally got it to reboot but the problem i have now is that the computer doesn't recognize the programs that are installed. when i tried to reinstall one program, it still asked for the drivers. also, i only had one restore point. while "fixing" it said that the "software" file couldn't be copied. Is there a way to still use the programs that i had installed on the computer?

That "software" file is what holds all the registry information for your installed programs.

Look in your C:\System Volume Information\_restore{D86480E3-73EF-47BC-A0EB-A81BE6EE3ED8}\ folder.
You are looking for folders named RP1, RP2 and inside those folders a folder called snapshot.
That is where you will find the "software" file that will have all you programs information.
Look for the "software" file that is the largest size try using that "software" from the Recovery Console

i got to the part to type cd tmp and it said access denied

Try moving the _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE file to root (C:\)

You should then have access to the _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE file from a command prompt.

OK....windows wouldn't start after the last step, so i connected that hard drive to another computer so that i could copy the file to the root. I got to the last step " copy system c:\windows\system32\config" and it couldn't find the file. What now?

If you have the drive slaved to another system you don't have to use the command window.
You can just use windows to copy the _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE file,
rename it and then move it to the system32\config folder

What you have looks normal but I find this file interesting:
software.sav 27392 kb Sav file 4/30/06
It looks to be some type of backup done on 4/30/06

If I were the one trying to salvage this install I would copy the above file to a temp folder
rename it to software and then replace the one in the windows\system32\config folder.

If it still won't boot then I would do the same as above dropping the .sav extension to the following files:
default.sav 272kb SAV File 4/30/06
security.sav 44 kb Sav File 4/30/06
software.sav 27392 kb Sav file 4/30/06

This would take the system back to 4/30/06 but at least if it works it's better than nothing.
The only thing I can see going wrong is the sam file might not work and you would get a login mismatch.

so to make sure that i understand...copy the files with the sav extentionsto a temp folder. I already have a tmp folder on this drive. Should i empty it and rename the files there? After that am i to go back through the microsoft fix or just copy those files directly to the system32\config folder? Sorry for all of the questions, but i don't want to make a bad situation worse...

...one other thing i'd like to know is why does this happen. This is the second time that i've had a registry failure. What can I do to prevent this from occuring again if anything?