problem with updates

[Krid]

I freed up about a gig before defragmenting, so that's not the problem.

Also, I know exactly what the problem is. It can't do *something* to/with the registry key mentioned here:

11.10.2006 17:33:16 registry: ERROR!:Cannot access registry HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\avastTestService, error code: 0x000005AA
11.10.2006 17:33:16 general: Err:Not enough user rights to continue.

[kubecj]

I checked the code, it simply does a test if you can write to the specified place in registry and if not (for whatever reason), it then explain that to itself, that you don't have the rights to do so.

Althought this is not your case - it seems you have the problem with too big registry file.

[DavidR]

If as kubecj said your registry is too big, you might consider compacting it to get rid of redundant and empty entries. I have used a registry hive compactor (RegCompact.net.exe) for a while now with no problems (but I also take regular disk images to recover from any disaster), but working with the registry carries a government health warning.

If you acept the risk and wish to try it you can get it here http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=465.

[Krid]

See, I thought it might be something like that, but that doesn't seem to make much sense because XP doesn't have a registry size limit -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726

I think what happened is that the system failed to write to the registry, and so locked it. Does anybody know if that could be the case, and if so then how to fix is?

[Lisandro]

If it helps, try ERUNT (backup/compact Windows Registry features).
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

[DavidR]

It may not have a size limit but it will have to work within the limitation of your partition size and compete with that space with the pagefile and any other windows functions/services that require a chunk of space, like the ntfs file table (or whatever it is called, I use Fat32 formatted partitions). So it may be in some way constrained.

I also have my swap/pagefile spread over two HDDs, a small fixed size one (256MB) on drive c: and one of 768-1536MB on my second HDD.

[Krid]

I currently have 900mb of free space on that drive, so it shouldn't be having a problem finding free space anymore.

[Lisandro]

Tested here, no problems with update:
11:20:52 min/gen  Return code: 0x20000001 [Nothing done]

Is this the only Administrator account of this computer?
Can you access the avast folders through Windows Explorer?
Are you using common shares of files or advanced one (a Windows Explorer option).

[Krid]

There's the Administrator account, but that is suffering from the same problems.
Yes, I can access the folders through windows explorer.
I am not using common shares.

RegCompact dies while trying to read the System hive, and the errors would seem to suggest severe registry corruption. My restore points from before the error showed up seem to have vanished.

I don't suppose anybody has any suggestions at this point aside from a reinstall? A way to repair the registry at boottime, perhaps?

[DavidR]

I'm not aware of a way to repair a corrupt registry, but I know a friend who might, google, http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=repair+registry+corruption this returns many hits. You could refine this search with some of the error numbers, etc. perhaps that might narrow it down.

This one might be close talks about corrupt hive, http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm.

[Krid]

The problem seems to be fixed. The system hive had balooned up to 210mb, and I had to restore the backup.

I doubt this was related to avast!, so doubly thanks.

[DavidR]

Your welcome. Wow to the system hive 210MB, that's huge, I can't remember what mine was the last time I used RegCompact to tidy up (once a month) just checked, Tiny by comparison, total registry probably less than 30MB, see image for the main ones.