[dba-Tech] Frozen Registry - redux

Hi Kathryn

I don't know exactly how the registry stores it data, but based on my
practical experiance I supose it uses some kind of objecy approach.
Therefor, you could have a key in the object that corrupted which you
can't delete, but it is posisible to delete the entire object. Because
when dooing this, it does not look at the keys inside of the object.


Maybe something more practical.
Do you have a second windows running on your computer?
If not, can you put your disk in to another computer with same OS (W2K)?
If so, you could make a copy of the user.dat and software file, zip
these and mail or ftp me those files.
I will load them in the regedit of winxp. As I already told you, in the
winxp version of regedit is a automatic repair function of corrupted
registry files.
If it discovers problem I'm pretty certain this generates your problem.


Erwin
 

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Kathryn
Bassett
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:23 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: RE: [dba-Tech] Frozen Registry - redux

Erwin said:
> 1) From your webpage I noticed you haven't checked the security rights

> on the registry keys.
> This you should check for the keys you can not delete (not the kind 
> that come back).
> In W2K you can check the permissions of the registry keys only in 
> regedt32.exe.

I can't remember exactly what it was that I checked (could check notes
if needed), but someone had me do something in regedt32, and the result
should that I *do* have security rights.

He then went on to say:
> 2) What concerns the deleted key, coming back.
> I had this once on a server. 
> This was due to a registry corruption. The file was not corrupted (so 
> defrag and chkdsk run fine) but a small part of a registry key was 
> corrupted.
> I had two symptoms for this.
> A) I could not delete a key (altough my permissions where fine)
> B) I could delete a key, but it came back if I went back and forth 
> another key.
> This was only true for a sub key, not the whole registry ofcourse.
> I managed to solved this problem this way.
> 1) Export the parent key (for example Office10).
> 2) Delete the whole parent key.
> 3) At this point you can edit the exported key file, to remove that 
> ofotoscreens key.
> 4) Import the key.

And this sounds intriguing. I don't understand it yet - I need to ask
for details on HOW I do steps 1-4. But even if that works, I'd need to
find out how to test changing another area of the registry to see if it
is only the one area that has a problem. Please tell me the "how" part,
and hopefully by the time I get home from church there will be an answer
to try.

On another list were made several suggestions.
> 1. I presume you've tried running Regedit in Safe Mode, though you 
> don't mention it. If any running program is blocking Regedit, booting 
> into Safe Mode should negate that.

I've tried in both regular and safe mode.

> 2. Do you have no registry backups?  If you have, try a registry 
> restore, which will usually fix most minor probs. It's good to always 
> keep a known good registry copy.
> 3. Doesn't W2000 have System Restore? Have you tried that, back to an 
> early date before the troubles with Regedit began?

The problem is that I don't know how long it's been frozen. Before
trying any type of restore, I have a couple questions. What happens in
the registry regarding programs I've installed since the date of the
registry I would restore? Would I have to reinstall programs? How would
I know what programs that would involve?

> 4. Boot with shift held down to stop startups, then use End-It-All to 
> close EVERYTHING else down except Explorer and Systray. This might be 
> enuf to free up Regedit.

I'll try this after I get home from church, though I *think* I've tried
that before.

> 5. Run the W2000 equivalent of System File Checker.
> 6. Run a Thorough Scandisk.

Aren't they the same? In any case, occasionally, when booting up, it
wants to check the FAT32, and I will let it run. I was told that that
procedure was the 2000 equivalent of Scandisk. Is it? If so, that's been
done.

> 7. Reiinstall W2000 over the top.

Haven't yet tried that. I've got a lot of security updates since the
original installation, would they have to be done again?
 
> 8. Reformat the system partition and reinstall anew.

What I'm trying to avoid as it would take me several days to reinstall
everything.

> I'm assuming you're not running any so-called System Protection 
> utilities---these can reportedly create havoc with your system if they

> go wrong, and can sometimes cause more troubles than they solve.

I use McAfee for virus and the free version of ZoneAlarm. If those
aren't what you mean, then I guess I'm not running any.

Thanks for the leads,

--
Kathryn Rhinehart Bassett (Pasadena CA)
"Genealogy is my bag" "GH is my soap"
kathryn at bassett.net
http://bassett.net  

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