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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Rescue Disc => Topic started by: w0mbat on August 08, 2003, 05:20:23 PM

Title: registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: w0mbat on August 08, 2003, 05:20:23 PM

Hi,

Needed to edit the registry in a 98SE machine, but i was unable to open the registy.

Is this correct or am I doing something wrong?
I would like to understand more about why it is for 2K XP only please?

 Great disk otherwise.

:)

Cheers

Steve

Title: Re:registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: igor on August 08, 2003, 05:34:42 PM

The registry editor indeed works with Windows NT/2k/XP/2003 registry only. The reason is that BART is based on Windows XP, so it is capable of working with NT-based registry; it is the function of the operating system itself, so it's the same code you are using every day to access your registry; you can be sure that your registry will not get trashed anyhow.
The format of Windows 9x registry, however, is different. You can't attach Windows 9x registry in an NT-based system. The format of the registry files is not documented either, so it's quite hard to write a code to work with the registry files. Sure, you can do some reverse engineering and hope to find out enough information to describe the format properly... but it will be a big "hack", probably with a number of "unknown" fields.
Well, not that I wouldn't be thinking of it  ;), but it certainly may cause nasty problems...

Title: Re:registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: whocares on August 11, 2003, 07:02:22 PM

Quote from: w0mbat on August 08, 2003, 05:20:23 PM

Hi,

Needed to edit the registry in a 98SE machine, but i was unable to open the registy.

Hi Steve,
-if you can't edit the Registry in WIN-SafeMode, then you can still overwrite it with the last functional configuration by copying the user- and System.Da0 files over the respective DAT files..
-MS provides the nice utility ERU/ERD, which makes backups of the Registry/Systemfiles, so you can restore them with a Bootdisk, even if WIN  won't start. Backups have to be made beforehand, of course
 ;)

Title: Re:registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: w0mbat on August 12, 2003, 09:06:34 AM

Further question to reg editing with BART.

Is the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ a dynamicly generated key, each time the OS boots?
As I can find
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet001\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet002\
within BART, but not HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\ as it does not appear to exist.

Once I get a system bootable from the HDD I can then regedt32 in safe mode, so thats ok.

Was just wondering :)

Cheers

Steve

Title: Re:registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: igor on August 12, 2003, 09:45:07 AM

Yes, it is - the CurrentControlSet key is mapped to one of the ControlSetXXX keys during the startup - according to the configuration you select. Check the HKLM\System\Select key - you will see the mapping (e.g. if you select "Last Known Good" configuration during the boot, a different ControlSet will be used than during the "normal" boot).

So, you don't see the CurrentControlSet key from BART, since it's not a real key. Maybe BART could do some virtual mapping, however... ???

Title: Re:registry editing not allowed in 9x?
Post by: w0mbat on August 12, 2003, 12:27:43 PM

Hi Igor,

I do not think virtual mapping is needed.   ;)

It's just I was surprised it was not there.  All a learning curve!

Cheers

Steve in Oz