XP Registry Scanner

[kleinma]

I have a buddies XP SP2 computer that won't boot into safe mode or regular. However I can boot it fine using "Last Known Good Configuration" from the F5 startup menu.

From there I can do everything fine (windows updates, use the PC as normal), but as soon as I reboot, I get the same continuous reboot cycle. Disabling automatic restart on system failure shows me a STOP 0x0000007e message, however none of the MSKB articles about that stop message pertain to this situation.

Anyway, long story short here, I am looking to see if any of you CCers know of a registry scanning program that is actually good, not all these crappy regclean apps that come up in my searches.

Has anyone actually used any good registry scanning software? I never have had the need, as I keep my PCs in pretty good shape, and I install everything I download in virtual machines before I install them on my actual machines.

[nemaroller]

Well if its a bad hardware driver which would cause a nice STOP - even if you select boot up from 'last known good configuration', the hardware will be re-detected, and the bad (conflicting) driver re-installed automatically.

So question may be - what hardware was changed?

Perhaps AV software as well..

Otherwise have you looked at this?
http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows...error-aec.html

[Edit - found Direct Microsoft URL]:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[kleinma]

the thing is full of spyware and viruses too, so that could have something to do with it. I am pretty good at fixing screwed up PCs, but I know when the registry is screwed, sometimes there is no fixing, and you have to do a repair install or sometimes a full reinstall..

[timeshifter]

Run Avast, run SpyBot, go from there. Usually works for me.

[kleinma]

I uninstalled the biggest virus I know of, AOL.

After that, the PC no longer crashed on boot (which was even happening in safe mode)

Now all is well, and I am working to clean the machine of the spyware/viruses it has which is pretty easy to do. AOL was the culprit behind the bootup crash.

[timeshifter]

AOL sucks. 3.0 was awful, 9.0 did little more, but it ran just as slow. Still hated it. Took an hour to cancel the subscription. I was tempted to just leave it and not pay, see how they liked it.

[kleinma]

I agree, I used AOL back in the mid 90s when that was what EVERYONE had (in the 2.0-4.0 days). As soon as cable internet came to my house, I got rid of AOL and never looked back. It is amazing people still use it at all...

I think it actually installs more components and extra software/services than a windows installation does...

[timeshifter]

Wouldn't surprise me. They feel the need to have a say in everything your computer does... from crashing on boot to pretending to operate normally. You don't know what a clean PC is until you've reloaded without AOL.

[kleinma]

AOL and Norton AV together could bring the most powerful quad core CPU to its knees begging for CPU cycles to free up..

[timeshifter]

I volunteer Atheist to try out that theory for us. It'll be fun.

[kregg]

AOL and Norton AV together could bring the most powerful quad core CPU to its knees begging for CPU cycles to free up..

I've actually done that before on a old PC with a processor speed of 155MHz.

Had AOL 8.0, Norton AV 3.0 (I think - This was the old times). It worked... for a couple of boots. And then it died. Completely.


Mind you this machine had 16mb of memory, and barely 1gb on the first hard disk, 2gb on the second hard disk.

[Arrow_Raider]

Format it. That is the only solution if you truly want to fix it. After you have done so, teach him how to avoid spyware and viruses and demand that he buy a router if he doesn't already have one. Then, tell him that you will NEVER help him again. Otherwise, he will just keep doing the same old stupid crap and get infected again.

[kleinma]

he isnt that good a buddy. I'm being paid to do it BTW.

I never format someone elses computer unless I have to. I have fixed a few hundred PCs with similar issues, and I have had to format only a few.

[kleinma]

OneCare 2.0 beta found 6 virus files that AVG did not...

[bgmacaw]

Hopefully the hard drive isn't starting to flake out on you. I had a computer that did that once. It started with weird registry errors and certain programs that had worked OK started blue screening. Fortunately it progessed slow enough so that I was able to back-up almost everything I needed across my network before it died completely.

[kleinma]

HD seems ok... I think viruses screwed up system files.

[Arrow_Raider]

What be this backup concept you sp34k of?