Programs won't start

On 2/22/2012, Groundhog Gus posted:

Don't know how Dell works, but I have an HP with Vista Home Premium.
Instead of a disc supplied by the manufacturer, your disk should be
partitioned into a C: and a D:. The D: drive should also have system
saved files on it. If you know the DATE that 'no .exe' happened, then it
might be simple for you. If not, you'll either have to edit the the
registery or completely rebuild the C: drive.
Try this, when you first boot up the system, you should have which
Function key to press to do a system recovery. On mine it's F11. Keep
pressing it until you get the recovery screen. Then on the screen select
ADVANCED. It should show you a list of files you can recover. Select the
one that dates BEFORE you know the 'no .exe' error occured and let the
system do it's thing. The great part of the ADVANCED option is it will
restore the system files to that date and ONLY the system files. Any of
your regular files will not be changed. It takes about 15 minutes and
saves you a hole lot of work. This option has saved my butt many times.
It's worth a try.

It would help if you had posted this as a reply in the original thread.

In this instance, said thread is nearby, but otherwise it would be hard
to relate your post to what you replied to - *especially* since you
didn't even quote the original post.

Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 2/22/2012, Gene E. Bloch posted:

On 2/22/2012, Groundhog Gus posted:

Don't know how Dell works, but I have an HP with Vista Home Premium.
Instead of a disc supplied by the manufacturer, your disk should be
partitioned into a C: and a D:. The D: drive should also have system saved
files on it. If you know the DATE that 'no .exe' happened, then it might
be simple for you. If not, you'll either have to edit the the registery
or completely rebuild the C: drive. Try this, when you first boot up the
system, you should have which Function key to press to do a system
recovery. On mine it's F11. Keep pressing it until you get the recovery
screen. Then on the screen select ADVANCED. It should show you a list of
files you can recover. Select the one that dates BEFORE you know the 'no
.exe' error occured and let the system do it's thing. The great part of
the ADVANCED option is it will restore the system files to that date and
ONLY the system files. Any of your regular files will not be changed. It
takes about 15 minutes and saves you a hole lot of work. This option has
saved my butt many times. It's worth a try.

It would help if you had posted this as a reply in the original thread.

In this instance, said thread is nearby, but otherwise it would be hard to
relate your post to what you replied to - *especially* since you didn't even
quote the original post.

OTOH, I have come to think that it might have been just a slip of the
mouse, so I'll calm down a bit :-)

For one thing, your name seems somewhat familiar to me, and also,
you're using Xnews, so you're probably not a newbie...

If I'm wrong, please feel free to reinstate my original complaint - on
the honor system, of course :-)

Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 02/22/12 01:53 pm, Groundhog Gus wrote:

Don't know how Dell works, but I have an HP with Vista Home Premium.
Instead of a disc supplied by the manufacturer, your disk should be
partitioned into a C: and a D:. The D: drive should also have system
saved files on it. If you know the DATE that 'no .exe' happened, then it
might be simple for you. If not, you'll either have to edit the the
registery or completely rebuild the C: drive.
Try this, when you first boot up the system, you should have which
Function key to press to do a system recovery. On mine it's F11. Keep
pressing it until you get the recovery screen. Then on the screen select
ADVANCED. It should show you a list of files you can recover. Select the
one that dates BEFORE you know the 'no .exe' error occured and let the
system do it's thing. The great part of the ADVANCED option is it will
restore the system files to that date and ONLY the system files. Any of
your regular files will not be changed. It takes about 15 minutes and
saves you a hole lot of work. This option has saved my butt many times.
It's worth a try.

I have since discovered that there is indeed a Recovery Partition that
will allow the machine to be restored to its factory-fresh condition,
but that will be the last resort.

Restoring from a saved restore point fails, even from a restore point a
month or more ago.

I now have the set of disks (only 3 CDs) to which he did that original
backup, but I haven't yet tried restoring from them. Can they hold the
whole OS? I would have expected a few DVDs.

The disadvantage of restoring to the factory-fresh state (if that is
what it takes) is that he may lose his MS Office, which was preinstalled
but needed an activation key ($$), which I don't know whether he still has.

I can see the problem with the registry by comparison with the extracts
Joe Morris posted in reply to my original message, but since no programs
will run, I cannot use regedit to try to fix the problem.

Perce

"Percival P. Cassidy" wrote:

[system will not run a .exe file...]

[snippage]

I can see the problem with the registry by comparison with the extracts
Joe Morris posted in reply to my original message, but since no programs
will run, I cannot use regedit to try to fix the problem.

Do you have, or can you borrow, an installation disk for either Vista or
Windows 7? We won't be installing anything from it, but it can give you the
tools to inspect and edit the Registry.

(Incidentally...if you can see the Registry settings, what tool are you
using that can't edit them?)


Boot the installation disk, click NEXT on the dialog that asks for language,
time format, and keyboard mapping, then click "Install now". The system on
the DVD will run for a few seconds, then present you with the license text.
Leave the license text on the screen; we don't need anything beyond this
point from the normal installation process.

Press SHIFT+F10; a command box will open, with the prompt reading
"X:\Sources>".

Type REGEDIT and press RETURN. The normal GUI window for REGEDIT will
appear.

In the left pane select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then in the menu bar click
FILE -> LOAD HIVE... . In the "Load Hive" dialog, navigate to
C:\Windows\System32, then in the "file name" field type CONFIG\SOFTWARE and
click OPEN. A new dialog will open asking for the "Key Name"; type
something like aaa and click OK.

Assuming you typed "aaa" above, expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and you'll find a
key named "aaa" below it. Expand "aaa" and one of the entries near the top
will be "Classes" - which is the real location for what is exposed as
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Check the .exe and exefile entries here and correct
them.

When you're finished, left-click the "aaa" entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
then click the menu item FILE -> UNLOAD HIVE and confirm that you want to
unload it and all of its subkeys. Close the Registry Editor, then remove
the installation disk and reboot the computer. **IF** the .exe and/or
exefile entries were the only problem you may be home free, but as I noted
in the earlier posting anything that corrupts part of the system has
probably diddled elsewhere as well.

Good luck.

Joe Morris

On 02/22/12 07:25 pm, Joe Morris wrote:

[system will not run a .exe file...]

[snippage]

I can see the problem with the registry by comparison with the extracts
Joe Morris posted in reply to my original message, but since no programs
will run, I cannot use regedit to try to fix the problem.

Do you have, or can you borrow, an installation disk for either Vista or
Windows 7? We won't be installing anything from it, but it can give you the
tools to inspect and edit the Registry.

(Incidentally...if you can see the Registry settings, what tool are you
using that can't edit them?)

<snip>

OK, I haven't yet tried your instructions that follow, but I think what
I did comes close: I booted from a WinPE-based Macrium Reflect recovery
CD, went to the command line and executed REGEDIT. I could see that the
only thing under HKLM/Software/Classes/.exe was the Default. I then
created the new Keys and values that you quoted me earlier and exited
REGEDIT, but the new values did not seem to "stick." (I thought that any
changes were saved automatically on exit, and I didn't know about the
[UN]LOAD HIVE command.)

I'll try your most recent instructions and report back.

Thanks.

Perce