Speeder293

Hi all! You've been very quiet. Not to matter. I am almost at the end of my troubles. No guns involved either. After trying to reinstall software and getting permission denied but no key listing I decided to try a bigger bat. Found a website that had a routine for the switches for subinACL.exe Ran it and got into deeper trouble. Lost most of the desktop, the toolbar, the internet, just about everything. Couldn't get to regedt32 since the toolbar wouldn't work, couldn't get to command either. The top level administrator account was similarly affected. Looked like a full re-install was in order, but I didn't want to have to reset everything. One of the websites I had found talked about an XP repair install. From my computer at work I got to http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm and printed the directions. Went through his listed procedure and voila! The system was restored and almost all the settings were kept from prior to the problems. The only loss I have noticed is the Windows login screen pictures are missing. Don't know where to find them but they'll turn up somewhere. I was able to reset permissions as needed, but for most applications that needed to be reinstalled, there were no hangups. The printer drivers from HP for the Photosmart 7150 continued to be a problem. Somewhere along the line I had expanded the driver installation package to a temporary dirctory. Instead of having the driver's setup program do the install, I told the windows installation wizard to look in that folder. It took a little time, but the printer is now installed. The system is still slower than I would like it to be, but I know there are things to be cleaned out of the registry. I'll now try to find some time and use CCleaner properly to do some cleaning and tweaking. TTFN Remember: Doing it the hard way is always easier. (Murphy's Paradox)

Hi all, Thanks for the discussion. There is some progress to report. I downloaded and ran Dial-A-Fix as noted above but was not able to make permission changes that would stick. I would pick the checkbox for full control, hit apply, then ok thinking it worked. Reentering the permission window would show no changes. What I found is that your username needs to have ownership of the key to make permission changes. Click start run enter regedt32. Navigate to the affected key. Right click on the key?s folder. You will get a message that states you do not have permission to make changes but that you can change your permission level. Click ok. Right click on the key again. The permission window will open. If your username or administrator does not appear in the upper window, click on add. In the next window type in your username or administrator (Whatever you are logged in as.) Click search for names. It should replace the name you typed in with the server name and your user name. Click ok. Your name should now appear in the upper window of the permissions window. Not done yet. Highlight your username, click advanced at the bottom of the window. You should now be at a window with several tabs across the top. Click on Owner. Your username should appear in the lower window. Highlight it and click apply. Click ok. Back at the first permission window now. Highlight your username then click the full control checkbox. Click apply, then ok. The install software that has been giving me problems is now making progress. At least up to where it finds another key to choke on. What I am not sure if is if Dial-A-Fix made this process possible. I don?t recall seeing the advanced button, but I wasn?t looking for it either. Maybe someone can confirm this. I still have a ways to go before everything is fixed. Like, my printer driver not working. But that is for another thread. Regards and remember: Murphy was an optimist.

Hi all! Thanks for the responses. Davey - I think I'd rather take a sharp stick in the eye than put Nero back on the system. I'll try some other things first. Krit86lr - My CD/DVD reader is working fine. No yellow warnings in Device Manager. I can scan disks in the drive no problem. I believe the problem is in the registry. If Nero had permissions locked up, those settings might not have been corrected when CCleaner ripped it out. I found a command line program called subinacl.exe, from MicroSoft, that supposedly lets one adjust permissions, but the switches are complex so I'll try DAF first since it is more graphical. Progress: I was able to download, install, and run DAF. Afterwards I was able to convert the permissions on the key that I had mentioned in the first post. Not on the initial try, however. I found a level in regedt32 that I think was not working prior to DAF. There was a tab for ownership that I believe I was not able to change before. This time I was able to assign the ownership to the administrator then my username, then I was able to take change control of the key. That's as far as I went before the sandman got me. I'll see how the rest of it goes shortly. Remember - Dilber is Truth

Hi all, I'm in deeper than I want to go and life is too short for this stuff! I recently upgraded my desktop pc with a Sony CD/DVD reader/burner. It came bundled with software from Nero that included a little bugger called Nero Scout. Nero Scout is an indexing program that installs itself into machine memory then takes as much cpu time as it can. 97 to 98% It is about as helpful as a virus. Needless to say, computer performance was nil. It would not be deleted from memory with task manager and when I finally went to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel it would not uninstall. I downloaded CCleaner and it removed Nero and its Scout well enough. And many thanks for that! But along the way, several other things were affected. Microsoft Outlook, on startup, goes looking for the install disks. I put the disk into the cd reader and the installer proceeds to not find the disk. I tried to repair/reinstall the program but the installer gets about halfway through the process then gives a message of Error 1402 Could not open Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Msinfo\Categories\APPS\Excel\Add ins I read somewhere, maybe the Microsoft Knowledge base, that I need Administrator permission to change certain keys in the registry. Thing is, I'm the administrator. I can get into the permissions through regedt32 but cannot change them on any of the keys in question. There are several other programs that are similarly affected. Any ideas about changing/recovering administrator permissions? Windows XP Professional SP 2 Intel Celeron 2.8 GHz, 1 gig of ram Thanks and remember- It's not what you don't know that gets you. It's what you think you know that just ain't so. B