Windows 2000 Registry recovery

I recently tried to install MS Front Page for XP on my Windows 2000 server OS.

As I kind of expected, it didn't work out. However, it did complain some, and unfortunately, I didn't pay enough attention to those complaints, because when I rebooted, my windows profile was hosed and I could no longer see my programs under Start>>Programs.

Furthermore, (yeah, yeah, I know ) I reinstalled the OS over the old OS to repair it (the repair options didn't work out) and after rebooting, I couldn't see all my old files. I restored the partition from my backup, but unfortunately, I did not realize that I had not backed up the registry settings during my backup.

So now I can see all my programs under Program Files, but they are not loaded into the registry.

I have Norton CleanSweep and have also looked at some other Registry repair applications, but it appears that you must have properly backed up the registry in order for these to be useful (go figure).

Anyway, what are my options in this scenario?

Thanks for the help!

 

If you are lucky you only have a corrupt user profile. In that case (and well worth a try) How to copy data from a corrupted user profile to a new profile. The article discusses XP user profiles but I've read it over and from what I can tell, it applies equally to 2K.

If that doesn't fix things up you are looking at a bit more work because I don't see any option other than a reinstall of the apps. If you have to do that, I think I'd stay with the new user profile to install everything and do away with the old profile. Might not be necessary but I don't believe I'd trust the old one.

 

Newt,

Thanks for the ideas. I tried copying one profile over to another, and it recovered a couple of things, but not any of the MS applications, Netscape Communicator, or others.

I'm wondering if the "all users" profile from the old one needs to be copied to the new one as well in order for applications that were installed for all users to be available to all users. Also, what about administrators? For instance, I have:

Default User (Old Profile)
Default User.WINNT (New)

Administrator (Old)
Admin~1~BLA (new)
Administrator.BLACKBIRD (newest)

All Users (Old)
All Users.WINNT


BTW, the one that I restored was:

jeff (Old)
jeffnew


Note that this is running Windows 2000 Server. And after re-install of the OS, it had downgraded itself to a regular standalone server, so I had to reinstall Active Directory. Don't know exactly how that might affect administrator settings, but thought I'd share that.

Thanks again for the help.

 

I'd say yes to the All Users folder.

How did you 'reinstall AD'? DCPromo?

 

I just installed AD using the "configure your server" splash wizard that pops up during a default install of Win2K server (least that's what I think I did). Either way, dcpromo and "configure your server" wizard both call the AD installation wizard.

In the meantime, for testing of my backups, I used the built-in windows backup software (Veritas lite, if you will), to backup a portion of a W2K test partition, including the "system state ", which includes the registry, volume info, etc.

Then, I removed a program which I knew used the registry. Then rebooted, then restored my backup, including the system state.

During the restore, the system complained that "important Windows systems had been replaced" and requested that I reinstall them.

Given that it was a test, I ignored it. When I rebooted, I got a blue screen, and could not recover. Had to reinstall Win2K over it.

Any ideas what was wrong with the backup/restore in this scenario?

My intent is to have confidence that I can restore from a backup, applications that use the registry.

Thanks

 

Further details:

After backing up, then restoring the registry, using the Windows backup and restore utility,

I consistently get the following error message:

"Files that are required for Windows to run properly have been replaced by unrecognized versions. To maintain system stability, Windows must restore the original versions of these files."

"Insert your Windows 2000 server CD now."

As mentioned earlier, I made the mistake of trying to proceed without following the advice of the error message and reaped the consequences. When I do follow those instructions, it works out okay, but I don't understand why I'm having a problem....?

The objective here is to be able to backup and recover, not just data files, but applications with registry entires. Right now, I have little confidence that if I have another application failure (usually self-induced!) that I can recover from it.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

I use GoBack (was by Roxio but bought now by Symantec).