OT: Geritol for heavily-used XP systems

riredale wrote on 11/4/2007, 6:28 PM
Okay, for those of you who think Paul McCartney was famous for a band called "Wings" and not the Beatles, you probably don't know what Geritol is, or was. Basically, it was a heavily-advertised elixir that supposedly cured a whole host of medical ailments. Turns out the #1 ingredient was alcohol; no wonder everyone said they felt better after taking a few doses.

As some of you might recall, I've been using an XP/NTFS setup that was upgraded from 98se and FAT32. I've never had to do a complete software rebuild, even when going from a Compaq box to a home-built PC, and then after that, migrating through several very different motherboards and processor setups. Every once in a great while I will do a no-format reinstall of XPpro (keeping all other programs and data intact) just to keep the OS clean. But there have been times when a program wouldn't intall, or XP would tell me that I didn't have permission to access some file.

The problem, apparently, is that over time the registry key permissions get corrupted and twisted through program installs/uninstalls, viruses, and such. Anyone who has dug into his registry knows that it gets complicated and dangerous very quickly, especially when trying to change permissions.

Earlier today I was struggling with a trial copy of Vegas8a. It ran okay, but I couldn't save any configuration changes made to the program. Then I accidentally stumbled upon a Microsoft utility with the friendly name of "SubInACL.exe." As demonstrated here, this program can spider its way through your registry, resetting permissions to the way they were meant to be. After running it, suddenly Vegas8 now behaves normally! There's another thread here by a different guy but with similar accolades from users.

So IF you have odd installation issues and IF you have made a clone backup of your system, you might want to try this solution. I've only been working with my cleaned system for a few hours and there might be other issues yet undiscovered, but so far I'm getting the same kind of warm fuzzies that I'd get drinking Geritol.

Comments

monoparadox wrote on 11/4/2007, 8:27 PM
I had to do this a couple years ago and it fixed a ot of access problems I was having. I found the following tools handy for troubleshooting at

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/filemon.mspx

There's a link to regmon there too. If nothing else, they're fun just to see everything that's going on under the hood with windows.
blink3times wrote on 11/4/2007, 8:39 PM
By far, the best way of combating this sort of thing is disk imaging. I do a clean install of xp (or Vista as the case may be) with all of my programs... run it for a week or so, so that all of my programs are set up the way I want, and then do a disk image.

Every few months I just reinstall the image and the machine functions like new again. Not withstanding, I am free to play and experiment with trial programs without the need for uninstalling (leaving things behind in the registry).... I just reinstall the image and it's like the trial was never there.
Coursedesign wrote on 11/4/2007, 9:37 PM
Thanks for these great resources!

I have one machine that's been having the nastiest problems I have seen in 20 years of PC use, will try this.


Every few months I just reinstall the image and the machine functions like new again.

Just remember to immediately get the hundreds of crucial new security patches issued by Microsoft since your latest image.
vicmilt wrote on 11/5/2007, 2:58 AM
What progam are you gentlemen recommending for "disc imaging"?
farss wrote on 11/5/2007, 3:40 AM
True Image from Acronis.

Bob.
UlfLaursen wrote on 11/5/2007, 4:27 AM
I use that too - great util.

/Ulf
riredale wrote on 11/5/2007, 7:27 AM
TruImage 10 here. Don't get 11--lots of teething problems.

Over the years I've used DriveImage, Ghost, Microsoft, BackupExec, Retrospect, and a few others whose names escape me at the moment. Some excel at file backup, some at imaging, some at "bare metal" restores (i.e. starting with a bare disk). TruImage can do it all, though it's not without faults. Do a search on this board; this has been discussed at some length.

I do image backups all the time. Still, these "permissions" issues kinda creep up on you over time, and to truly fix them I would have to go back to an image from several years ago. I don't want to do that--too many hardware and software changes since then. But I agree that images are an essential aid to keeping one's mental health. I'm always experimenting (and trashing) my system on a regular basis. Images are my friends.
Coursedesign wrote on 11/5/2007, 9:43 AM
TrueImage is the best. It just seems that they always had teething problems with every new version.

SuperDuper is the top equivalent for the Mac, and it is even free (there is an inexpensive paid version that adds scheduling).
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/5/2007, 9:48 PM
I'm trying to decide between Trueimage 11 and Farstone Drive Clone 3.5 Pro. The thing that was attractive about Drive Clone Pro is the claim "Universal Restore feature allows migration of a system to dissimilar hardware, regardless of the manufacturer." Apparently it can restore a clone to a larger disc. This is real attractive when upgrading hard drives.

Can Trueimage do this or does the restore drive have to match the geometry of the original clone drive?

I also wanted to use the Secure Zone feature but from reading their forums it sounds users were cautioning against it.

I use to use Farstone Restore IT which is an excellent utility that backs up your critical windows files every time you boot before windows even loads. Then if windows doesn't boot for some reason, it can quickly restore to an earlier day because it loads before windows. (Like system restore on steroids). Drive Clone Pro includes Restore IT so I was leaning that way as a total solution. Has anyone used it or heard any bad things about it?

I'm thinking of getting a larger D: drive and using a partition of that to clone the C: drive so I have a hot backup. (C: is only a 70GB raptor)

~jr

Coursedesign wrote on 11/5/2007, 10:29 PM
I recently used TrueImage to upgrade a PC to a much larger hard disk.

Could have given the job to a five-year old.
riredale wrote on 11/5/2007, 10:47 PM
You can easily migrate to a different hard drive. What's not as trivial is moving to a different PC. The issue is the chipset on the motherboard that acts as the liason with the hard drives--there are many different sets, and when you first install Windows it locks in the particular chipset drivers needed at that time.

There's a way around this, though. Years ago when I was considering migrating my Windows environment from a Compaq PC to a homebuilt PC (using a Gigabyte motherboard, I think--that was a half-dozen motherboards ago), I discovered that Microsoft had a web page specifically on this subject, and they even gave all the code needed to make Windows platform-agnostic. I'll try and dig around to see if I can find that page.

Acronis does offer similar platform migration, but I think it's an extra-cost feature. But you certainly won't need it just to go from one hard drive to a larger one.

EDIT:
Still haven't found the MS Knowledgebase article I mentioned above, but some web pages say it's as simple as just booting to the XP CD on the new hardware and doing a "Repair Install." In theory this will pull in the necessary software components to allow Windows to work properly with the new chipset. I'd strongly suggest doing an image backup of the current system so you can easily get back if something gets scrambled.
Former user wrote on 11/6/2007, 9:31 AM
Just remember to immediately get the hundreds of crucial new security patches issued by Microsoft since your latest image.

I go one better and slipstream all the security fixes right into my XP install CD so that when I am ready to rebuild - all the machines get the same image with no need for Windows Update.

Cheers!

VP

jwcarney wrote on 11/6/2007, 4:30 PM
Just some FYI, the new Windows Home Server will do disk iimage backups of all you computers connected to the lan. You can get the software only version from NewEgg and roll your own.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/6/2007, 4:41 PM
> Could have given the job to a five-year old.

Now where did I leave that 5 year old... hmmm... he was here a minute ago... that's the problem with 5 year olds... never around when you need one ;-)

Thanks guys. I'm really overdue to a backup procedure that is fool-proof. I'll give it a go.

~jr
Coursedesign wrote on 11/7/2007, 1:11 PM
Coursedesign: Just remember to immediately get the hundreds of crucial new security patches issued by Microsoft since your latest image.

I'm familiar with slipstreaming security fixes onto an XP install CD, but how do you do slipstream these onto a system disk image backup?