corrupted SOFTWARE file

[Vulcan 0]

hey..

 

a friend of mine is unable to run his xp system.

 

a few days ago he booted his computer and xp didn't load.

he got a message that the file SOFTWARE is corrupted.

 

he didn't install any new hardware or software and the xp ran just fine the day before.

 

safe mode won't load and using "last known config" didn't help either...

 

is there something he can do ??

 

is the xp that fragile ? (i thought there was suppose to be a backup of the backup of the backup in xp...)

 

thanks in advance !!

[DosFreak 2]

Is your friend overclocking?

 

The "SOFTWARE" file is located in \Windows\system32\config . This directory holds the NT registry and event viewer logs. It's usually around 20-30mg on average and should be backed up regularly. If your friend is lucky he can look in \Windows\repair and copy the "software" file from there to the \windows\system32\config but it's likely that this file is veeerry old. Has he tried repair procedures using the XP CD? Try that first before you start copying files around.

 

I usually see registry corruption in overclocked, improperly shutdown systems, or corrupted IDE HD's/Cables.

[Vulcan 0]

no he is not overclocking.

 

where are all the backups??????

[Sampson 0]

I believe DosFreak meant \winnt\repair and \winnt\system32\config.

 

It would be better to boot from the CD with the XP system disk. Follow the prompts and Repair.

[DosFreak 2]

This Control Panel thing is pretty neat. Just looking at my subscribed threads....

[Vulcan 0]

he says the repair option just sends his to the command prompt..

 

isn't there a more recent backup of the software file ?

[Sampson 0]

This is a really lengthy article but it will take you step by step:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545

[Vulcan 0]

system restore was disabled on his computer.....is he doomed ?

[CyberGenX 0]

Yup. No just kidding. You may be able to repair the reg rather than restoring it. The command prompt is where you start.

[Wolf87 0]

Try "chkdsk" first.

[Vulcan 0]

repair the reg ?....how ???

[Sampson 0]

Click on the Microsoft article I cited above. It will give you the info you need to try to save the registry.

[Vulcan 0]

according to that article....if system restore was disabled before the crash then there is nothing he can do.the backups are in the "snapshot" folder in the system restore folder,hence no system restore..no backups..

[Sampson 0]

Maybe, but there should be a folder c:\windows\repair\ that should contain - software, default, sam, system, and security. This should have been created when he first installed XP. It will be these which are copied into the C:\windows\system32\config folder AFTER you have copied these files to c:\windows\TMP to get XP to boot. That is step 1.

[Vulcan 0]

true...he could do step one...

 

but he would lose all his software ,so he would better reinstall xp..don't you think ?

[Sampson 0]

Actually, he would not lose his software. It would still be on the hard disk. Unfortunately, it would not be "registered" in the registry, which means that some things simply would not work as expected.

 

Yes, he could try to re-install XP and it may work out as the best thing to do all around.

[Vulcan 0]

thanks for your input....but i believe he will reinstall the xp.