BonzaiDuck
Lifer
I don't think I've had to do this sort of thing for 20 years. Maybe -- never.
I know enough about the Windows registry to assume that certain things can or might be done.
My brother passed his computer to me [a product of yours truly] because he'd attempted to install some driver -- probably the AGP nVidia driver [yup -- this is sort of an oldie] -- and fouled up the XP-Pro operating system. In beginning to boot, it would get through the scrolling green progress bar, put the mouse cursor on the screen, and after a pregnant pause -- reboot and re-post.
There had been a mild overclock setting amounting to a 10% OC on the 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 processor. The memory was within its voltage limit [as was the CPU], and OC'd mildly from DDR-400 to DDR-452. These were particularly good OCZ Platinum modules that had extremely tight latency settings -- which didn't need to be loosened for the 52 extra Mhz.
So much for the hardware, except that I tested the system with MEMTEST86+, and there was no problem with it. Similarly, the RAID BIOS shows everything to be copacetic. Bro explained his video driver escapade, and how the system went south the day he installed it. His bad.
No repair disk floppy. No rescue disk. Wouldn't repair on its own through the XP install disc. We finally determined to make a reinstall of the OS -- but not a "clean one" -- so we could salvage his files, Favorites, Bookmarks, "My Documents," photos, music (he's a musician) -- you get the picture.
I made a slipstream of XP SP2. (His last XP had certainly been upgraded to SP3). And now that it's possible to back up all the important stuff folder-by-folder -- maybe then kill the RAID array and start over [possibly with a single, larger-capacity drive], it dawns on me that there is a Software Hive in the Windows registry. The old Windows directory and files have been preserved.
So I'm wondering if there isn't a reasonably simple way of transferring the registry Software Hive from the old XP install to the new XP install. I can certainly move the IE Favorites and his FireFox bookmarks. I can transfer the contents of "My Documents."
And I'm wondering if there won't be glitches in transferring the Software Hive.
Any suggestions? If I needed to, I could probably start poring over the old XP "bible" that MS had published. IT's on the shelf somewhere. But I thought to drop by here and ask first.
Does Regedit have an "IMport" capability?
I know enough about the Windows registry to assume that certain things can or might be done.
My brother passed his computer to me [a product of yours truly] because he'd attempted to install some driver -- probably the AGP nVidia driver [yup -- this is sort of an oldie] -- and fouled up the XP-Pro operating system. In beginning to boot, it would get through the scrolling green progress bar, put the mouse cursor on the screen, and after a pregnant pause -- reboot and re-post.
There had been a mild overclock setting amounting to a 10% OC on the 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 processor. The memory was within its voltage limit [as was the CPU], and OC'd mildly from DDR-400 to DDR-452. These were particularly good OCZ Platinum modules that had extremely tight latency settings -- which didn't need to be loosened for the 52 extra Mhz.
So much for the hardware, except that I tested the system with MEMTEST86+, and there was no problem with it. Similarly, the RAID BIOS shows everything to be copacetic. Bro explained his video driver escapade, and how the system went south the day he installed it. His bad.
No repair disk floppy. No rescue disk. Wouldn't repair on its own through the XP install disc. We finally determined to make a reinstall of the OS -- but not a "clean one" -- so we could salvage his files, Favorites, Bookmarks, "My Documents," photos, music (he's a musician) -- you get the picture.
I made a slipstream of XP SP2. (His last XP had certainly been upgraded to SP3). And now that it's possible to back up all the important stuff folder-by-folder -- maybe then kill the RAID array and start over [possibly with a single, larger-capacity drive], it dawns on me that there is a Software Hive in the Windows registry. The old Windows directory and files have been preserved.
So I'm wondering if there isn't a reasonably simple way of transferring the registry Software Hive from the old XP install to the new XP install. I can certainly move the IE Favorites and his FireFox bookmarks. I can transfer the contents of "My Documents."
And I'm wondering if there won't be glitches in transferring the Software Hive.
Any suggestions? If I needed to, I could probably start poring over the old XP "bible" that MS had published. IT's on the shelf somewhere. But I thought to drop by here and ask first.
Does Regedit have an "IMport" capability?
