How can I access the registry?

extra-ordinary_

How can I access/edit the registry on a Windows XP Home installation that's on a drive I have hooked up as a secondary drive? Is it possible?

BoB_BoT

if I recall correctly, you can do this by running regedit. What do you need to edit exactly? I'd recommend against doing it until you've read up on it a bit. Otherwise you may do irreversible damage.

You select the HKEY Local Machine string, click file, hit load hive. Then navigate to the external drive, into documents and settings, then the user file you want (ntuser.dat). Remember to unload the hive when you're done.

extra-ordinary_

Thanks, I've got a blue screening installation with a corrupted winlogon.exe process that MSKnowledge Base points to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon Value = GinaDLL REG_SZ

JonathanAnon

I think you're approaching it from the wrong angle... Why dont you post the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) error that you got on this thread... We might be able to point you in a better direction..

extra-ordinary_

Here ya go...

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000034 (0x00000000 0x0000000)
The system has been shutdown.

JonathanAnon

How to troubleshoot a "STOP 0xC000021A" error

That's what Microsoft suggest.

Have you tried Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration etc etc...

extra-ordinary_

Yes and yes. Installation is XP Home which I don't have to do a repair install. I've recovered the user's data but was hoping to fix without a reinstall. The registry fix from the MS article looks like it it'll leave the original installation unrecognisable. I managed to check the mentioned registry key but all seemed OK.

JonathanAnon

Maybe try an in-place repair (which realistically never works) or perhaps a system restore??

extra-ordinary_

Just doing a clean install of XP Pro now - thanks for the input.