So, you forgot your Windows XP Administrator password? If not, you wouldn’t be reading this post, would you? But well, even if you haven’t forgotten your password and are reading this post, this could help you someday in the future to recover it. So, read on.

Passwords can be hard to remember because many software programs, websites etc. require you to use strong passwords. For example, a website called ClickBank needs its members to have a password with:

• 2 upper-case letters (e.g., A, B, C, D…)
• 2 lower-case letters (e.g., a, b, c, d…)
• 2 numbers (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4…)
• 2 special characters (e.g., !, @, #, $…)

A password having all the things noted above would be very difficult to remember. And, there are other passwords that you need to remember. Of course, such difficult passwords help in that they don’t let others log into your accounts, because others can’t guess them.

But how can you remember such long and difficult passwords? One option is to use password programs like RoBoForm which remembers all of your passwords and you just need to remember one master password to log into all of your accounts, programs or websites.

But what if you have forgotten your Windows XP Administrator password? Programs like RoBoForm work only after you’re logged into Windows. So, how do you log into Windows without knowing your Administrator password? Even the Recovery Console cannot help you if you don’t remember the Administrator password. But don’t despair. There is a way out! This article will show you how to remove or change an Administrator password.

1. First of all, make sure that your CD drive is the first boot device. You can do this by entering the BIOS/CMOS setup and changing the boot device. In some computers, pressing a key brings up a boot menu containing a list of boot devices.

2. Either way, insert your Windows XP CD into the CD drive and boot your computer from it. If you receive a message to press any key to boot from CD, just press any key on your keyboard.

3. Windows XP setup will start loading files. Wait till you get the following screen and then press the Enter key to setup Windows. (Don’t worry, nothing from your old Windows XP will get deleted.)

4. Accept the license agreement by pressing the F8 key.

5. After accepting the license agreement, you will be asked if you want start a Repair process. Press R to start the Repair process.

6. Windows XP Setup will now check your hard disks for any errors and after that, it will start copying files. Let it do this step. This may take some time, so have patience.

7. After the file copying is done, the computer will reboot. Let it reboot and then boot normally. If you’re asked to press a key to boot from CD, don’t press a key this time. Let it boot from the hard disk on its own.

8. After the computer reboots, Windows XP setup starts installing (repairing) Windows, as shown below.

9. Keep an eye on the bottom left-hand side of the setup screen. When you see a green progress bar saying “Installing Devices”, press the SHIFT + F10 key (i.e., keep the SHIFT key pressed and then press the F10 function key).

10. This would open a command prompt window wherein you can type commands. If the current folder, as shown below, is not C:\Windows, just type cd .. to come out into that folder. You may also type cd\windows to go into the Windows folder.

Now, while in the command prompt, type the command NUSRMGR.CPL and then press the Enter key.

12. The User Accounts window opens. Click on “Change an account” and then select the Administrator account.

13. When you see the below screen, asking you what do you want to change about Administrator’s account, click “Change the password”. 

14. Now in the next screen, type a new password for the administrator’s account. You may even leave it blank if you want to, but it’s not recommended. Type the new password once again to confirm. You may type a password hint in the space provided. Now, just press the Enter key to change the password to your new password and then close the User Accounts window.

15. If you just want that Windows should not ask you for the administrator password, open a command prompt by pressing SHIFT + F10 key, as above, but instead of NUSRMGR.CPL, type CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2. When you get the following screen, just uncheck the checkbox which says “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer. From now on, Windows won’t ask you any password for any user.

16. Type the command, exit in the command prompt window to exit it.

 17. The installation process would continue. On the following screen, just click ‘Next’. Or, if you want to change the regional and language options, click the customize button and do so. Once you’re done, click ‘Next’.

 18. Windows XP Setup continues to install Windows and finishes in a few minutes.

 19. After saving the settings, the computer restarts and then you get a welcome screen as shown below. Click Next.

 20. You may or may not want to turn on automatic updates. Select your choice and then click Next.

 21. when asked for registering with Microsoft, select “No, not at this time” and then click Next. 

 22. On the thank you screen, click Finish. 

23. You get the following screen, asking you to logon by clicking your username.

24. At this point, press Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the following logon screen and then change the username to Administrator. Provide the password you just changed and click OK. Leave it blank if you removed your Administrator password.

25. Windows XP starts normally and you can start working. 

This article discusses, explains and gives solutions for all the possible questions one may have about the Windows XP Recovery Console. It’s a great time saver for newbies looking for an all-in-one FAQ article on the Windows XP Recovery Console.

Note: The term, “setup disc” and “installation disc” used in this post, both mean the same thing and refer to the Windows XP installation disc.

1. What is the recovery console?

2. What are the requirements for using the Windows Recovery Console?

3. What is the Recovery Console used for and when should it be used?

4. What can the Recovery Console do for me?

5. I use an imaging software regularly to backup my Windows partition. Do I really need to know about the Recovery Console?

6. Which versions of Windows support the Recovery Console?

OR

On which versions of Windows does the Recovery Console work?

7. What happened to the Recovery Console on other Windows versions like Vista and 7?

8. What should be done before using the Recovery Console?

9. How to get into the Safe Mode in Windows XP?

10. How to install the Recovery Console, after Windows is already installed?

OR

I have a working Windows XP system. How can I install the recovery console on the hard disk drive so that it’s available as a boot menu option?

11. How to start the Recovery Console directly from the Windows XP CD?

OR

How can I start the computer and use the Recovery Console from the Windows installation disc?

OR

How can I run the Recovery Console without installing it?

12. I don’t have the Windows installation disc and I don’t want to install the Recovery Console on the hard drive. Can I download the Recovery Console from somewhere and put it on disc?

13. How to delete or remove the Recovery Console installation from the system?

14. In what circumstances, is the Recovery Console helpful?

15. How is the Recovery Console Accessed?

OR

How to start the Recovery Console?

16. How to access the Recovery Console without a Windows XP disc?

17. How to enter the Recovery Console if the administrator password is lost or forgotten?

18. Is there a way to make Windows XP not ask a password for the Administrator account only in the Recovery Console?

19. How to use the Recovery Console?

20. Which commands can be used in the recovery console?

21. Can the recovery console be used to remove malware (spyware/viruses/trojans)? If yes, how?

22. How to access the Recovery Console if the Windows XP computer doesn’t even boot or start up?

OR

How do I get to the recovery console if my Windows XP crashed and doesn’t boot?

23. Why doesn’t my Windows XP installation CD give me the option to start the recovery console? Where is it?

OR

I don’t see any option to start the Recovery Console, using my Windows XP disc. How do I start the Recovery Console?

OR

How can I get to the Windows Recovery Console without an official Windows Setup CD?

24. While booting the Windows XP computer using the setup disc, I get the error, “Setup did not find any hard disk drives in your computer.” , but the hard drive is connected and working. What’s the problem and how to solve it?

25. Where can I find drivers for my hard disk controller? How can I tell what kind of hard disk controller I have?

26. After installing the XP Recovery Console, I get the error “BIOSINFO.INF is missing (Error 14)”. Where can I get this file or how can I solve this problem?

27.I get a BSOD (blue screen of death), every time I try to install the Recovery Console. How can I install the Recovery Console?

Advanced usage of the Recovery Console:

28. What are the limitations of the Recovery Console and how to remove them?

29. How to install Recovery Console during an unattended installation?

30. I don’t have access to the normal mode or the safe mode in Windows XP. Using the Recovery Console, can I somehow find out, which version of the service pack is installed on the system?

31. If I try to install the Recovery Console on a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)-based computer, I receive the following error message:

Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.

32. Can I use system restore for restoring the system from within the recovery console? If yes, how?

OR

How can I use the Recovery Console to restore the system to an earlier state?

33.  How to uninstall a hotfix or Service Pack via the Recovery Console?

34. How to create an XP Recovery Console on a USB flash drive, which is bootable?

OR

Is it possible to create and use a Recovery Console on a USB flash drive? If yes, how?

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Q.1. What is the recovery console?

Ans. The Recovery Console is a command-based, set of diagnostic tools available in some Windows versions.

It is a text mode troubleshooting and recovery tool introduced by Microsoft in Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows, including Windows XP. It helps recover, change or fix files or settings which could cause the computer not to function properly. It is available on the XP installation discs and can be installed to the hard drive as an extra boot option. It allows you to boot from disc and run a command-line “console”, from within which you can examine your hard disk, copy files and fix problems.

Many people don’t know or haven’t even heard of the Recovery Console. But when their system fails to boot, it could be too late to learn about this tool.

If your Windows system can’t boot even in the Safe Mode,the Last Known Good Configuration, or other boot menu options, you can try using the Recovery Console to restore the system to an earlier system restore point. Since this method involves using commands to find and troubleshoot Windows problems, you should be an advanced Windows user, who knows how to use at least some basic commands. You should also have an administrator password, to log on to the recovery console.

In the Recovery Console, commands are available which you can use to work with directories and some powerful commands like fixboot can fix a damaged hard disk boot sector. You can access Help for the commands in the Recovery Console by typing help at the Recovery Console command prompt.

Whenever Windows doesn’t work, or fail to boot, most people think of doing a re-install. Using the Recovery Console doesn’t come to their minds, even though it is one of the most useful tools for error recovery, without making any loss of data. So, whenever Windows gives any error message which tells you to fix it using the Recovery Console, you shouldn’t ignore it. It’s not that hard to use the Recovery Console and it’s much faster than installing Windows and all the software programs again.

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Q.2. What are the requirements for using the Windows Recovery Console?

Ans. Note the following requirements before using the Windows Recovery Console:

• Unless you have installed the Recovery Console as a boot menu option, you should have a Microsoft Windows installation disc.
• You should know the Microsoft Windows Administrator account password.\
• You should have at least some experience in using MSD-DOS commands.

You will have access only to the root directory and the Windows directory. You won’t be able to access any other directory through the Recovery Console.

Note: If you don’t have an official Microsoft Windows XP disc, you can get into the Recovery Console by getting this Recovery Console ISO disc image file, burning it on a CD and booting from this disc. Burning an ISO image file is quiet different from burning data files to a CD. If you don’t know how to burn an ISO image file to disc, view this post first.

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Q.3. What is the Recovery Console used for and when should it be used?

Ans. The Recovery Console is used to help resolve a number of major system problems.

The Recovery Console is particularly useful for repairing or replacing important operating system files, if you have to repair Windows by copying a file from another source like a CD-ROM, or if you have to reconfigure a troublesome service which is not letting the computer startup. When these files or services won’t work properly, Windows may not startup at all, not even in Safe Mode. In such cases, you must start the Recovery Console to restore the files.

The Recovery Console is also useful in situations such as removing malware, spyware, trojans and other viruses, which cannot be removed in Normal Mode and Safe Mode.

This method of system recovery is for advanced users only! It allows you to access the files, format drives, disable and enable services, read and write data on a local drive and do many administrative operations from a console prompt.

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Q.4. What can the Recovery Console do for me?

Ans. When you use the Windows Recovery Console, you can get limited access to NTFS, FAT, and FAT32 partitions, without starting the Windows graphical user interface.

In the Windows Recovery Console you can:

• Use, copy, rename or replace operating system files and folders.
• Enable or disable services or devices from starting when you next start your computer.
• Repair the file system boot sector or the Master Boot Record (MBR).
• Create and format partitions on drives.

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Q.5. I use an imaging software regularly to backup my Windows partition. Do I really need to know about the Recovery Console?

Ans. It’s always better to know more than one way to recover a system. Secondly, not everyone uses an imaging software to backup their partitions and you may be at some other computer or could help someone else recover Windows, if you knew how to use the Recovery Console. Thirdly, you could have some important data that you haven’t yet backed up and Windows failed to boot.

It would be very useful to know and familiarize yourself with the Recovery Console, even if you have no intention of using the command line. If ever their is a problem, causing Windows XP not to boot, this command line facility could allow you to repair a corrupted system or backup precious personal files. In old DOS-based systems, a DOS boot disk could be used to access and retrieve data. But the NTFS systems like Windows XP cannot be accessed using DOS.

It’s possible to create many types of CD boot disks which provide for emergency repair and retrieval of data, using Linux or special NTFS readers. However, Windows XP comes with its own accessory for handling this. The Recovery Console will work with FAT and NTFS formatted disks but it’s especially useful with NTFS formatted disks.

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Q.6. Which versions of Windows support the Recovery Console?

OR

On which versions of Windows does the Recovery Console work?

Ans. The Recovery Console is supported in the following Windows versions:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional

However, note that if you have an OEM computer, your computer manufacturer may or may not have installed the Recovery Console, or may have totally removed it from the boot or recovery disks. Check the information that came with your computer or go to the manufacturer’s website to know more. Not all manufacturers provide the Windows XP setup disc.

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Q.7. What happened to the Recovery Console on other Windows versions like Vista and 7?

Ans. The Recovery Console in earlier versions of Windows has been removed in these versions of Windows and replaced by several tools located in the System Recovery Options menu. The System Recovery Options menu is on the installation discs.

If Windows doesn’t start correctly, you can use these tools to repair startup problems, restore your system files to an earlier point in time, run tests on your computer’s RAM, and in some editions of Windows Vista, restore your entire computer and system files from backups.

For more information, see:

What are the system recovery options in Windows Vista?

What are the system recovery options in Windows 7?

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Q.8.  What should be done before using the Recovery Console?

Ans. When Windows doesn’t boot in the Normal Mode, the first thing to try is the Safe Mode and undo any changes that you did, before it stopped booting normally. Say, if you installed or updated some software program, you should uninstall the program or the update and then try to restart the system normally. You should also try the “Last Known Good Configuration” boot menu option, if Windows doesn’t boot. This works many times and the next time you start your computer, it should start up normally.

If Windows doesn’t boot with both of the above options, only then should you try to use the Recovery Console. But, before using the Recovery Console, it’s a good practice to do the following:

Back up your hard drive by creating the exact image of it

It’s a very good practice to create an image copy of your hard disk, before you start using the Recovery Console. This is because, in the hands of an in-experienced user, or by wrongly using it, the Recovery Console could do more harm than good and you could lose important data. There are many commercial and some free image Recovery programs available which can do this for you. If you wish to know about them or how to use them to create an image, view this post.

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Q.9. How to get into the Safe Mode in Windows XP and Vista?

Ans. You should keep tapping the F8 function key or hold it after you turn the computer ON. If it doesn’t give the advanced boot menu options screen, turn it off while Windows XP tries to boot up. Then turn it on, again. Windows will bring up the Advanced Options Menu, where you can select the Safe Mode or the “Last Known Good Configuration” option. Sometimes, the system automatically restarts due to problems booting up normally and the next time it presents you with the Advanced Options Menu automatically.

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Q.10. How to install the Recovery Console, after Windows is already installed?

OR

I have a working Windows XP system. How can I install the recovery console on the hard disk drive so that it’s available as a boot menu option?

Ans. To install the Recovery Console, you will need your Windows XP CD. The version of Windows XP on the CD must match or surpass the version installed on your computer, thus a Service Pack 3 disk is recommended.

If you don’t have the Windows installation disc, try to borrow one from a friend or co-worker. If you still can’t find one, you can download setup disks or disk images from Microsoft. However, since floppy disk drives can only be found on very old computers, so a Recovery Console CD or ISO image can be downloaded from here. If you don’t know how to burn an ISO disk image to a CD, view this post.

The following paragraphs explain how to install the Recovery Console on a working Windows computer. If Windows isn’t starting up and you wish to use the Recovery Console, check the answer to the next question below (Q.10).

You can install the Recovery Console on your computer to make it available as a boot option. It will be helpful when Windows doesn’t start. You can then select the Recovery Console option from the Windows boot menu, during startup. To install the Recovery Console, you must be logged on into Windows as an administrator.

Although you can run the Recovery Console by starting it directly from the Windows XP CD, it takes more time to start and you may not have the Windows XP CD handy at that time. So, it’s better to have it as a start menu option.

To install the Recovery Console on to the hard drive, follow these steps:

Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive.

Click Start, and then click Run.

In the Run box, type the following command and hit the Enter key:

D:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons

D is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive. Replace it with your CD-ROM drive’s drive letter.

If you have the 64 bit edition of Windows XP professional, type the following command and hit the Enter key:

D:\amd64\winnt32.exe /cmdcons

A Windows Setup dialog box appears, which describes the Recovery Console option. To confirm that you want to install the Recovery Console, click Yes.

Once the installation is complete, click on OK and then remove the CD from the drive. Then, restart the computer. After you restart your computer, “Microsoft Windows Recovery Console” can be seen as a boot option in the Windows boot menu. You have successfully installed the Windows Recovery Console.

This post gives step by step instructions on how to install the Recovery Console to the hard drive.

Here’s a YouTube video which shows how to install the Recovery Console.

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Q.11. How to start the Recovery Console directly from the Windows XP CD?

OR

How can I start the computer and use the Recovery Console from the Windows installation disc?

OR

How can I run the Recovery Console without installing it?

Ans. Follow the steps given below, to start the Recovery Console from the Windows XP installation disc:

• Boot the computer with the Windows XP install disc in the CD drive. If you don’t know how to do this, check out one of these YouTube videos:
• How To Change First Boot Device in BIOS?
• Change Boot Order and Boot from a CD/DVD
• When you see the “Welcome to Setup” screen, press the R key to start the Recovery Console.
• The Recovery Console starts. If you have more than one Windows installation, select the installation that you wish to repair from the Recovery Console, by pressing the installation number followed by the Enter key. If you have just one Windows installation, just type 1 and press Enter.
• When prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER. If you don’t know the password, try pressing the Enter key anyway. Most of the times, this may work. If it doesn’t work, view this post on how to reset your Windows XP administrator password.
• When you see the prompt C:\Windows\>, type the command, help and press Enter to see a list of all available commands. Now, you can enter the commands you wish to use.
• For information about a specific command, type the word help followed by the command name and then press ENTER.
• To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

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Q.12. I don’t have the Windows installation disc and I don’t want to install the Recovery Console on the hard drive. Can I download the Recovery Console from somewhere and put it on disc?

Ans. Download it from here, unzip it and burn it to a CD as an ISO file. It’s just about 7 MB in size and runs faster than booting with a Windows installation disc. If you don’t know how to burn an ISO file, read this post.

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Q.13. How to delete or remove the Recovery Console installation from the system?

Ans. Warning: Modifying the Boot.ini file incorrectly may prevent your computer from restarting. Make sure that you delete only the entry for the Recovery Console. Also, change the attribute for the Boot.ini file back to a read-only state after you finish this procedure.

Follow the steps given below, to remove the Recovery Console installation from the hard drive:

• Open My Computer, and then double-click the hard disk partition (mostly drive C), where you installed the Recovery Console.
• Click the Tools menu, then click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
• Click ‘Show hidden files and folders’, click to clear the ‘Hide protected operating system files’ check box, and then click OK.
• From the root folder (drive C), delete the Cmdcons folder and the Cmldr file.
• At the root folder, right-click the Boot.ini file, and then click Properties.
• Click to clear the Read-only check box, and then click OK.
• Open the Boot.ini file in Microsoft Windows Notepad, and remove the entry for the Recovery Console. It looks similar to this:
  

  C:\cmdcons\bootsect.dat=”Microsoft Windows Recovery Console” /cmdcons

• Delete the line that looks like the above.
• Save the file and close it. Again, right click it, click on properties and click the check box to make the file read-only. Then, click OK.
• Now, when you restart your computer, you won’t get the Recovery Console boot menu option anymore.

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Q.14. In what circumstances is the Recovery Console helpful?

A number of commands are available in Recovery Console. Using these commands in specific ways can help solve specific problems. All Recovery Console commands must be entered manually using a strict syntax.

Here are some examples where executing particular commands in the Recovery Console was necessary to resolve very damaging issues:

• Repair the Master Boot Record in Windows XP.
• Restore Hal.dll From the Windows XP CD.
• Restore NTLDR and NTDetect.com from the Windows XP CD.
• Restore a backup of the registry files to start Windows.

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Q.15. How is the Recovery Console Accessed?

OR

How to start the Recovery Console?

Ans. The Recovery Console is usually accessed from the original Windows installation CD. Alternatively, it can be accessed from the Windows boot menu, but only if it has been preinstalled on your system.

To start the Recovery Console from the Windows installation disc, view Q.10 above, and follow the instructions.

To install and start the Recovery Console from the hard drive so that it’s available as a boot menu option during Windows XP startup, view Q.9 above, and follow the instructions.

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Q.16. How to access the Recovery Console without a Windows XP disc?

Ans. Accessing the Recovery Console Without a Windows CD

Most of the times, OEM computer manufacturers don’t include the Windows installation CD with their systems. They include a recovery partition on the system or one or more system recovery discs. They may or may not provide a way to access the Recovery Console. So, if you own an OEM or branded computer, check the documentation whether your manufacturer provides a way to access the Recovery Console. If it’s missing, continue to read below.

Many years ago, computer vendors used to provide a Windows Setup disc along with their computers which would allow users to reinstall individual system files or Windows components, in case something went wrong. But today, the best that you can get with a branded system is the so-called recovery or restore disc. Many vendors don’t even provide such a disc, instead, they put a restore partition on the computer hard drive itself. This partition is hidden from normal view and can be accessed using a key displayed during computer startup. But imagine what would happen if the hard drive fails! You can’t even access the recovery partition in such a case. Unless, you’re a computer geek, you have no way of getting back your data or recovering from the Windows crash! You may be able to order recovery discs from your vendor, but this can take quite a long time and if your computer’s warranty is over, then you’d have a very hard time. And even if you are able to get such a disc, it’s still an OEM disc and not the real Windows Setup disc, which may lack some features available on the real Windows disc.

Some major OEM computer vendors provide a software program which allows you to create a restore disc from the hidden restore partition, so this is the first thing you should do, after buying a branded computer system. Your vendor’s website may also have such recovery disc software from where you can download and burn it to disc. SO, you should check it. But know that with a recovery or restore disc, you won’t be able to reinstall or repair a previous Windows installation. It will only give an option to format and reinstall a clean and new copy of Windows.

So, what are the alternatives to be able to repair your Windows installation or restore just a few needed system files? First, you should look within your Windows folder or even on the root of the system drive (mostly C:) for a folder named i386. Some vendors copy the Windows installation files into this folder. If you find such a folder, you should burn it to a disc. Also look for the drivers folder within the Windows folder and burn that one too. Even though this disc won’t be bootable and functional as a Windows Setup disc, it’d still be useful if you are able to boot into your Windows system, somehow.

Since you may have bought the system many years ago, and applied updates and patches to the original Windows, now the disc that you burned, won’t have all of those patches and updates. A solution to this problem is to slipstream with the XP SP3 update. To know more how to slipstream Windows XP, view this post. You can also use the free Autostreamer to do this job.

Another problem is to get the Windows XP product key. It may be on a sticker somewhere on the computer or in the documentation that came with it. Note it down somewhere, where from you can retrieve it easily. In case, you can’t find it, there are some programs that will do this for you. ViewXP, Keyfinder and Belarc Advisor – all of them can do this for you.

If you don’t want to work hard, doing all of the above, there are programs that can make life simpler for you. They are called disc imaging programs. View this post to know more, how to use such a free program to make an image of your Windows partition to recover later, in case of a system crash.

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Q.17. How to enter the Recovery Console if the administrator password is lost or forgotten?Ans. To recover or reset your Windows XP Administrator password, view this post.

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Q.18. Is there a way to make Windows XP not ask a password for the Administrator account only in the Recovery Console?

Ans. Using this registry hack, you can’t recover a password. But using this may help you one day to enter the Recovery Console, when you can’t boot into Windows XP normally. This hack makes Windows XP not to ask for a password in the Recovery Console.

This hack has to be carried out when your Windows XP is working normally. Follow the below procedure:

Click Start –> Run  and type in regedit and press the Enter key.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole

Set the DWORD SecurityLevel value to 1

Exit Registry and Reboot.

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Q.19. How to use the Recovery Console?

Ans. If Windows isn’t starting and you don’t have the Recovery Console installed as a boot menu option, you need the Windows XP Setup CD.

To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP CD:

Put the Windows XP CD into the CD drive, and restart the computer.

When you see the “Welcome to Setup” screen, press R to start the Recovery Console.

(When you use the Recovery Console, you are working at a special command prompt, not the ordinary Windows command prompt. The Recovery Console has its own, special command prompt. To enter this command prompt, the Recovery Console asks you to type the local Administrator password.)

The Recovery Console takes some time to start. When the Recovery Console menu appears, a numbered list of the Windows installations on the computer appears. (Generally, only c:\Windows appears if there’s only one installation of Windows.) Press a number before you press ENTER, even when only one entry appears.

Note that if you press ENTER without selecting a number, the computer restarts.

If you have a dual-boot computer, select the Windows installation that you want to repair with the Recovery Console.

When asked, type the Administrator password. If there’s no password for the administrator, just press ENTER.

When you see the prompt for %SystemRoot% (generally C:\Windows), you can start using the available commands for the Recovery Console.

At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to detect and repair your Windows installation.

For a list of available commands in the Recovery Console, type HELP at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

For information about a command, type HELP COMMANDNAME at the command prompt, and then press ENTER. For example, to know more about the DIR command, type HELP DIR and press the ENTER key.

To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type EXIT at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

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Q.20. Which commands can be used in the recovery console?

Ans. What do you do in the Recovery Console? Which Commands do you have to enter or type? And, how to get help about these commands? The table given below, lists all the available Recovery Console commands and their descriptions. If you want more details about a specific command, they can be accessed by entering a “/?” after the command-name. For example:

dir /?

For more details about these commands, please view this knowledgebase article from Microsoft.

The Recovery Console is a command-line interface. Most of the commands come from MS-DOS. So, if you have used MS-DOS before and are familiar with it, you can figure out what a command does.

Note that the Recovery Console has its own command interpreter and the commands may somewhat differ from those of the same name in a regular DOS command prompt. Also, in the default configuration, some commands are disabled or limited in their functions. Refer to the answer to Q.27  to remove some of these restrictions.

The following commands can be used in the Recovery Console:

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21. Can the recovery console be used to remove malware (spyware/viruses/trojans)? If yes, how?

Ans. View this post to know how to use the Recovery Console to remove malware.

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22. How to access the Recovery Console if the Windows XP computer doesn’t even boot or start up?

OR

How do I get to the recovery console if my Windows XP crashed and doesn’t boot?

Ans. If you have the Windows XP installation disc, insert it into the drive and boot the computer from the disc. If you don’t know how to boot the computer from a CD/DVD, view this post.

After the setup loads the needed drivers, you’ll get a screen asking you what to do, as shown below. Once you’re on this screen, press the R key on your keyboard to start the Recovery Console.

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23. Why doesn’t my Windows XP installation CD give me the option to start the recovery console? Where is it?

OR

I don’t see any option to start the Recovery Console, using my Windows XP disc. How do I start the Recovery Console?

OR

How can I get to the Windows Recovery Console without an official Windows Setup CD?

Ans. If you don’t have the Windows XP installation disc, you can download a small, 7 MB ISO image  of just the Recovery Console, burn it to disc and boot the computer using that disc. This has an advantage over using the installation disc – it boots the system much faster than the Windows XP installation disc.

Download the Recovery Console ISO image from here.

If you don’t know how to burn an ISO image to disc, view this post.

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24. While booting the Windows XP computer into the Recovery Console, using the setup disc, I get the error,

“Setup did not find any hard disk drives in your computer.”

The hard drive is connected and working. What’s the problem and how to solve it?

Ans. Your hard drive needs a special driver, which is not included in the standard Windows XP setup disc. You need to download and install your hard disk driver from the computer or hard drive manufacturer’s website or from the Internet. Then, put it on a floppy drive and have it ready when booting your computer from the setup disc.

If your computer doesn’t have a floppy drive, see whether you can get one from a friend or relative. If you can’t get it, view this post about how to install SATA drivers without a floppy drive, and even after Windows has been already installed! No need to make a slipstreamed CD!

Solution for people who have a floppy disk drive attached to the computer:

When you have the hard disk driver ready and boot the computer off your XP setup disc, after a few seconds, you get a message telling you to press F6 if you want to insert a third party driver. At this time, press the F6 key and then insert your driver floppy into the floppy drive.

Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver…

Windows Setup won’t instantly tell you that it recognized your pressing the F6 key. Wait for it a minute or two. You will be given the option:

To specify additional SCSI adapters… or special disk controllers…

Press ‘S’ to select this option.

You will then be given a list of hard disk drivers to install. NOTE: The list will only show the first four drivers, even though there may be more than four. If this is the case, simply use the arrow keys to scroll down through the list until you find your exact hard disk controller driver. Then select it with Enter.

Once you have specified the correct hard disk controller driver, Windows XP Setup should be able to view your hard drives and then you will get the opportunity to enter the recovery console.

You won’t need to specify the hard disk driver or insert the driver floppy every time – the driver gets installed or copied to the hard drive and the next time you start the Recovery Console, it would be loaded automatically.

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Q.25. Where can I find drivers for my hard disk controller? How can I tell what kind of hard disk controller I have?

Ans. Click the Start Menu and click Run. Then, type in devmgmt.msc and press the Enter key. In Device Manager, click the + (plus) sign next to “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers” and then double-click on the hard drive controller. Clicking the driver tab in the device properties, would tell you the drive controller manufacturer and model number.

Note down this information, and then go to the manufacturer’s website, search for and download the driver. Typical drivers have a bunch of files in them. For example:

iaahci.cat

iaahci.inf

iastor.catiastor.infiastor.syslicense.txtreadme.txttxtsetup.oem

For more information or if you want to install SATA drivers to an already installed Windows XP system, read this post:

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Q. 26. After installing the XP Recovery Console, I get the error “BIOSINFO.INF is missing (Error 14)”. Where can I get this file or how can I solve this problem?

Ans. Microsoft tells you to install the Recovery Console from the Windows XP installation disc, but many computer vendors don’t ship any official Windows XP installation disc. So Microsoft instructions may not always work.

First, remove the existing Recovery Console. View the answer to Q.12 for removal details.

Once the Recovery Console is removed, now install the Recovery Console again. Instead of installing from the Windows XP installation disc, install it from the existing XP installation on your hard drive.

Click the Start Menu and then click Run. In the Run box, type:

C:\WINDOWS\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons

and press the Enter key. When the Windows Setup dialog box appears, click OK.

On the next Windows Setup dialog box, click Yes.

If you’re connected to the Internet, Setup downloads some updates if available. If you’re not connected to the Internet, you get the following dialog box. Just click “Skip this step and continue installing Windows”.

Setup starts copying files and then gives the following dialog box. Just click OK. The Windows Recovery Console has been successfully installed.

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Q.27. I get a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), every time I try to install the Recovery Console. How can I install the Recovery Console?

Ans. Unless you’re sure of the cause, you should do everything that Microsoft recommends on the BSOD page, like restarting the computer, checking for viruses etc.

If you’re not able to read the BSOD error because after the BSOD, the system reboots, keep pressing the F8 function key before Windows restarts. When you get the Windows Boot Menu, highlight “Disable automatic restart on system failure” and press the Enter key. This won’t make your system reboot on BSOD and you can see the error.

If you still keep getting the BSOD, it’s quite possible that the Recovery Console doesn’t have the correct driver for your hard disk controller. But, how do you replace the hard disk controller driver for the Recovery Console? Read and follow the instructions in this post.

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28. What are the limitations of the Recovery Console and how to remove them?

Ans. Restrictions and Limitations of the Recovery Console:

From the Windows Recovery Console you can only use the following folders:

• The root folder.  For example: C:\, D:\, etc
• The %SystemRoot% folder and subfolders of the Windows installation you are currently logged on to
• The Cmdcons folder
• Removable media drives such as CD-ROM drives If you access other folders, you get an “Access Denied” error. You also cannot copy a file from the local hard disk to a floppy disk, though you can copy a file from the floppy disk or CD-ROM to a hard disk and from one hard disk to another.

Recovery Console rules
There are many environment rules in effect in the default Recovery Console. Type the command, SET, to list the currently applied environment rules. The default rules are:

AllowAllPaths = FALSE

prevents access to directories and subdirectories outside the system installation that you selected when you entered the Recovery Console.

AllowRemovableMedia = FALSE

prevents access to removable media as a target for copied files.

AllowWildCards = FALSE

prevents wildcard support for commands such as copy and del.

NoCopyPrompt = FALSE

the Recovery Console will ask for confirmation when overwriting an existing file.

Removing Console Restrictions

Removing the above Recovery Console restrictions have to be carried out while you’re logged into Windows XP normal mode. They can’t be done from within the Recovery Console.

Open regedit and find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole\. In the right pane, this key will have an entry “SetCommand”. Put a value of 1. This is shown in the figure below.

Registry editing is not for everyone and can do more harm in the hands of an inexperienced user. Those who are not confident in using it can download this small script which will make the Registry edit for you. You only have to extract it, right-click on it and click install. Click here to download the setcommand script in zip format. Before using it, you may want to backup the registry or create a system restore point.

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29. How to install Recovery Console during an unattended installation?

Ans. In order to install the Recovery Console during the unattended installation of Windows, it is necessary to use the [GuiRunOnce] section of the unattend.txt file. The command needed for an unattended installation of Windows XP is:

CD_Drive:\i386\winnt32 /cmdcons /dudisable /unattend

Where CD_Drive is the drive letter of your CD_Drive.

For more information about how to use the Unattend.txt file, see the Deployment Planning Guide of the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit.

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30. I don’t have access to the normal mode or the safe mode in Windows XP. Using the Recovery Console, can I somehow find out, which version of the service pack is installed on the system? 

Ans. From within the Recovery Console, while in the Windows folder type:

dir explorer.exe

The date and size of explorer.exe will tell you the Service Pack installed on the system:

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31. If I try to install the Recovery Console on a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)-based computer, I receive the following error message:

Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.

Ans. View this Microsoft Knowledgebase article. It has simple instructions on how to solve this problem.

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32. Can I use system restore for restoring the system from within the recovery console? If yes, how?

Ans. Yes, you can restore the system using the Recovery Console but this process is lengthy and you should use it only when you can’t boot the system normally or even using the Safe Mode and other options from the XP boot menu. Please view this post to know the procedure.

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33.  How to uninstall a hotfix or Service Pack using the Recovery Console?

Ans. To uninstall a hotfix or Service Pack using the Recovery Console, view this post.

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34. How to create an XP Recovery Console on a USB flash drive, which is bootable?

OR

Is it possible to create a USB pen drive bootable version of the Recovery Console?

Ans. Yes, it is possible to create a USB pen drive version of the Recovery Console and it’s not too hard to do. Follow the steps given below to create the USB version of the Recovery Console.

WARNING: Any data you have on the USB flash/pen drive would be erased and the drive would be formatted for use with the Recovery Console. Make sure to backup any data you may have on the pen drive to another drive, before continuing with the below procedure.

Note: Booting from the USB flash drive depends on your computer’s BIOS. If this option isn’t present there, then this thing won’t work for you. You may want to try using a Recovery Console disc, instead.

1. Download and extract this file to a location on your hard drive. For example, C:\.

2. After extracting the above file to a suitable location, open the extracted folder in Windows Explorer and double-click to run the file named hpusbfw.exe.

3. Select your device, if you have more than one, from the drop-down list. Then, select the FAT32 file system from the available types and type any volume label of your liking. Now, click on Start, to format your flash drive.

4. Open the command prompt and drag bootsect.exe on to the command prompt window. The path to the bootsect.exe file would be printed. Add the option /nt52 followed by the letter of your flash drive, as shown below, and press the Enter key to update the bootcode on your flash drive.

5. Copy the contents of the folder, “Copy my contents only” to your flash drive.

6. Open the file TinyHexer by double-clicking on it, from the location you extracted the zip file in step 1.

7. Click the File Menu and click Open, to select and open the NTLDR file which is on your flash drive.

8. Once this file is open, click the Edit Menu and then click Find/Replace. Check the options “find text” and “ignore case”, type NTLDR in the text search box and then click the Find button. Then, click the Replace button, check the option “is text” and type CMLDR in the replace text box. Finally, click “Replace All” button to replace all instances of NTLDR by CMLDR.

9. Now, click the File Menu and click Save As, to save it to your flash drive. Name the file as USBLDR and then exit TinyHexer.

10. To test the USB Recovery Console, reboot your system and then, select the first boot device in your CMOS boot options as the USB flash drive or if available on your system, press the key to show the boot menu. Select boot from USB, save and exit the CMOS setup. The Recovery Console should start and should be up within seconds.

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This article explains how to install the Windows XP Recovery Console to the hard drive, so that it is available as an option in the Windows boot menu.

1. Insert your Windows XP installation disc into your CD drive. Then, open up the Windows Command Prompt by typing the command cmd into the RUN dialog box and pressing the Enter key.

2. When the command prompt opens up, type the drive letter of your CD drive (e.g., F: as shown below) and press the Enter key.

3. Once you get the CD drive letter prompt (like F:\> here), type the command given below and press the Enter key:

i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons

4. The Windows Setup dialog box opens and asks you whether you want to install the Recovery Console as a startup option. Click Yes to continue.

5. If you’re connected to the Internet, it may connect to Microsoft.com and update some setup files. This won’t take more than a minute or two, depending on your connection.

6. Once setup is updated, it starts copying files and within a few minutes, it’s done.

7. Setup informs you that the Recovery Console was successfully installed and gives some other information about the Recovery Console. Click OK to exit setup.

8. Now, to test whether it installed alright and whether it’s working, you’ll need to reboot the computer. Don’t forget to remove the Windows Setup CD from the CD drive first.

What is a CMOS Battery?

The CMOS battery is an important part of the computer, because it helps the computer remember its settings and about itself. It’s important that this battery is in good health. There are some symptoms which you can see for signs of a weak or dead CMOS battery.

The CMOS battery makes the CMOS memory remember settings, including date and time settings. If the battery is weak or dying, the clock will get reset to 12:00 and the date to Jan 1, every time you start the computer. The computer may also shutdown, unexpectedly. It may also ask where it should boot from, when you power it on. These are some signs of a weak, dying or dead CMOS battery.

Many computers will give a warning message about the CMOS battery, when you boot them up. Nowadays, CMOS batteries are not replaceable and are built inside the motherboards, when you see symptoms of a dying CMOS battery, you probably have to replace the motherboard. Check with your motherboard manufacturer, if you have a new motherboard, since the manufacturers consider this a defect. You may be eligible for a replacement motherboard.

This battery is connected to the south bridge chip, to power both CMOS memory and RTC circuits. You can see the CMOS battery within its motherboard socket in the above picture.

The above is an example of a south bridge chip. The CMOS memory and the Real Time Clock (RTC) are both embedded in this chip, nowadays.

Recognizing CMOS Battery Failure

When your computer starts up, the BIOS may give a warning message like "CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded". It will also tell you to press a key to enter the BIOS or just continue. Go into the BIOS and change the date/time and other settings that need to be changed. Then, save and quit. After restarting, if you still get the above message, you should replace the CMOS battery.

If you don’t get any such warning, check that the time and date on your system is correct. If the time resets to 12:00 and date resets to Jan 1, this is an indication of a dying CMOS battery and you should replace it. You should first confirm this by setting the time and date in your BIOS. If they reset again after restarting the computer, replace the battery.

If the computer suddenly shuts down or you get hardware errors like not detecting the hard drive, CD drive and RAM, this may cause the computer to shutdown. First check that all the cables are properly plugged in. Then, remove and re-insert the RAM. If the system still shuts down, you should try to replace the CMOS battery first, since it’s cheaper than trying to replace other parts.

Check the CMOS battery voltage, if you have a multimeter. The voltage across a good battery should be about 3 volts. When it’s below 2.5 volts, it may start giving problems. If the battery voltage is below 1.8 volts, the battery is dead.

Replacing the CMOS battery

When you remove the CMOS battery, all the hardware settings stored in the CMOS memory are lost. So, you should record or note down the CMOS settings before removing the battery. Go into the BIOS by pressing the required key (mostly F1, F2, Del or F10). Note down any customized settings like hard drive configuration, CPU speed adjustments or port activation/deactivation etc. Then, shutdown the system and unplug.

When you have replaced the battery, enter the BIOS once again and select "Load BIOS Setup Defaults". (Depending on your BIOS Manufacturer, you may have "Load Standard Defaults", "Load Fail-Safe Defaults" or just "Load Defaults"). Then, reconfigure the customized settings that you noted earlier. Save the settings and exit the BIOS.

Replacement CMOS batteries can be purchased at any electronics stores or online. Compare the engraved serial numbers before purchasing the battery.

Remove power and discharge static electricity before touching delicate electronics.

Below are links to some videos on how to remove and replace a CMOS battery:

How to replace your PC’s battery

CMOS battery replacement

Q.1. In Windows XP, when opening the Task Manager, Registry Editor or Folder Options (from the Tools menu in My Computer), I get a message saying these tools have been disabled by the administrator. How do I re-enable them?

OR

I can’t access Folder Options in Windows Explorer. Task Manager and Registry Editing is also disabled. I get an error dialog box which says that they are disabled by the administrator. How do you solve this hell?

Q. 2. On double-clicking any drive partition or folder in My Computer, a search window opens up? How do I open the drive to open a file or view the drive contents?

Q. 3. On double-clicking any drive or partition in My Computer, I get a message saying that copy.exe could not be found, to make sure that the name was correctly typed and then try again. How do I open the drive to open a file or view the drive contents?

OR

On double-clicking any drive or partition in My Computer, the Open With dialog box shows up. How do I open the drive to open a file or view the drive contents?

Q. 4. Even though the “always open folders in the same window” checkbox is checked under Folder Options, on double-clicking any folder in My Computer opens it in a new window. What should I do to open all folders in the same window?

Q. 5. On opening any folder, another folder with the same name is created inside it. This is happening with all the folders. How do I remove all these extra folders?

Q. 6. My Documents folder or My Computer opens up automatically at Windows startup. How to get rid of this?

Q. 7. I get the following error message when I start the computer:

NTLDR is missing

 

Press any key to restart.

 

OR

 

Boot: Couldn’t find NTLDR

 

Press any key to restart.

Is there a way to get Windows and my data back or have I lost all the data?

Q. 8. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

 

C:\Windows\System32\hal.dll.

 

Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Is it possible to repair Windows without reinstalling?

Q. 9. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message:

“C:\Windows\System32\config\system” file is missing or corrupt.

Is it possible to repair Windows without reinstalling Windows?

Q. 10. I installed Windows 98 over my existing Windows XP installation. Now, I’m unable to boot into Windows XP. I’m not getting any option to select which OS to start. What do I do to get Windows XP back?

Q. 11. How to delete or remove a duplicate entry from the Windows boot menu?                                                                           OR

How to set the default OS in the Windows boot menu?                OR

The default boot time is set to 30 seconds. How to change the default boot time in the Windows boot menu?

Q. 12. Check disk starts every time the computer is started, even though Windows was properly shutdown. How can I stop the disk check from running every time?

Q. 13. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message every time:

CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded.

How can I stop or correct this?

Q. 14. When sending or receiving a message in Yahoo messenger, I get a blank window and can’t see any contents in the chat window. What’s wrong and how to solve it?

Q. 15. I had to re-install Windows, but after re-installing it, the Standby option is grayed out and can’t be clicked in the shutdown dialog box. How to enable it again?

Q. 16. I get the classic logon box instead of the new welcome screen in Windows. How to get the welcome screen back?

Q. 17. A process named ctfmon.exe always runs in the background. Ending the process through the task manager just restarts it automatically. How to get rid of this strange process?

Q. 18. In Firefox, all the bookmarks vanished and the list is empty. How to get them back?

Q. 19. Some files’ icons are wrongly shown. How can I get the corrupted icons back?

Q. 20. In Windows XP, all the icons on the desktop suddenly show an ugly background rectangle behind the text. How to make the text transparent?

Q. 21. The common tasks pane has vanished and is not shown anymore when I open My Computer. How to get it back?

Q. 22. A Copy To / Move To dialog box opens up automatically whenever I right-click on the start button and select Open. How can I open the start menu folder?

Q. 23. Even after checking the “Show hidden files/folders” checkbox under the Folder Options menu, it gets automatically unchecked and I can’t see the hidden files and folders. How can I see my hidden files and folders?

Q. 24. How can I get mspaint.exe back? I accidentally deleted the file.

Q. 25. In Windows explorer, image files aren’t shown as thumbnails, even after clicking the Thumbnails view in the view menu. How can I view the images as thumbnails?

Q.1. In Windows XP, when opening the Task Manager, Registry Editor or Folder Options (from the Tools menu in My Computer), I get a message saying these tools have been disabled by the administrator. How do I re-enable them?

Ans. Read this post and download the small tools to enable the Task Manager, Registry Editor and Folder Options.

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Q. 2. On double-clicking any drive partition or folder in My Computer, a search window opens up? How do I open the drive to view a file or the drive contents?

Ans. Open the registry editor by typing the command regedit into the RUN dialog box and hitting the Enter key. Then, go to the following two keys, one by one and delete the string named “Default”, from the right-pane:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell

Reboot the system and the search window should be gone. If it’s still showing up, then delete the subkey named “find” from below both the above keys. Reboot again and the search window should be gone away for good.

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Q. 3. On double-clicking any drive or partition in My Computer, I get a message saying that copy.exe could not be found, to make sure that the name was correctly typed and then try again. How do I open the drive to open a file or view the drive contents?

OR

On double-clicking any drive or partition in My Computer, the Open With dialog box shows up. How do I open the drive to open a file or view the drive contents?

Ans. Open “My Computer” and then click “Folder Options” and then the “View” tab. Under the View tab, click the “Show hidden files and folders” radio button and then click OK.

Now, open each drive or partition in “My Computer” and check whether there is any file in the root of each drive or partition (C:\, D:\, E:\, etc). If it exists, delete each instance of the file and then reboot the computer. The problem is solved.

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Q. 4. Even though the “always open folders in the same window” checkbox is checked under Folder Options,  double-clicking any folder in My Computer opens it in a new window. What should I do to open all folders in the same window?

Ans. Download thefollowing file, unzip it and run the .REG file (by double-clicking on it). Then, reboot the computer and the problem would have been solved.

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Q. 5. On opening any folder, another folder with the same name is created inside it. This is happening with all the folders. How do I remove all these extra folders?

Ans. Your computer is infected with a virus called Brontok / Rontokbro or its variant. To remove it, download and run MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware.

Any of these tools also remove Brontok / Rontokbro and its variants successfully:

Symantec

Sophos

Bitdefender

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Q. 6. My Documents folder or My Computer opens up automatically at Windows startup. How to get rid of this?

Ans. Here’s the solution to this problem.

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Q. 7. I get the following error message when I start the computer:

NTLDR is missing

Press any key to restart.

OR

Boot: Couldn’t find NTLDR

Press any key to restart.

Is there a way to get Windows and my data back or have I lost all the data?

Ans. Boot using the Windows Setup CD and enter into the Recovery Console by pressing the “R” key, when prompted. Now Log into windows installation and enter admin password. Now type the following commands at prompt:

copy x:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy x:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

Where “x” is your CD drive. Change it to the drive letter of your CD drive. (Change c:\ to the appropriate drive letter where Windows XP is installed):

If the simple procedure given above doesn’t work, or if you don’t understand it easily, try the step-by-step instructions given in this post.

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Q. 8. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

C:\Windows\System32\hal.dll.

Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Is it possible to repair Windows without reinstalling?

Ans. Boot using the Windows XP Setup CD and enter into the “Recovery Console” by pressing “R”. Login into the Windows installation and enter your admin password.

Now, type the following commands at the command prompt, one on each line, and this should repair your Windows XP installation (Change c:\ to the appropriate drive letter where Windows XP is installed):

attrib -r -s -h C:\boot.ini

del c:\boot.ini

bootcfg /rebuild

fixboot

If the simple procedure given above doesn’t work, try the step-by-step instructions given in this post.

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Q. 9. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message:

“C:\Windows\System32\config\system” file is missing or corrupt.

Is it possible to repair Windows without reinstalling Windows?

Ans. Boot using the Windows XP Setup CD and enter into the “Recovery Console” by pressing “R”. Login into the Windows installation and enter your admin password.

Type the following command at the command prompt and then reboot the computer. This command should fix the above error.

copy %windir%\repair\system  %windir%\system32\config

If the above didn’t fix your system, once again boot into the recovery console, using the Windows installation CD.

Now, type the following commands at the command prompt, one on each line, and this should repair your Windows XP installation (Change c:\ to the appropriate drive letter where Windows XP is installed):

fixmbr

bootcfg /scan

bootcfg /rebuild

fixboot

If both the simple procedures given above don’t work, try the step-by-step instructions given in this post.

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Q. 10. I installed Windows 98 over my existing Windows XP installation. Now, I’m unable to boot into Windows XP. I’m not getting any option to select which OS to start. What should I do to get Windows XP back?

Ans. The Windows 98 installation over-wrote the boot loader. Boot using the Windows XP Setup CD and enter into the “Recovery Console” by pressing “R”. Login into the Windows installation and enter your admin password.

Now, type the following commands at the command prompt, one on each line, and this should repair your Windows XP installation:

fixmbr

bootcfg /scan

bootcfg /rebuild

fixboot

If both the simple procedures given above don’t work, try the step-by-step instructions given in this post.

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Q. 11. How to delete or remove a duplicate entry from the Windows boot menu?

OR

How to set the default OS in the Windows boot menu?

OR

The default boot time is set to 30 seconds. How to change the default boot time in the Windows boot menu?

Ans. You can use any of the following methods:

In the RUN dialog box, type sysdm.cpl and press the Enter key (or click OK). In the System Properties, click the Advanced tab and then click the Settings button under the “Startup and Recovery” section.

Now, click on the Edit button and you can change the boot loader settings here. You can easily find and remove the extra / duplicate entry from this file.Click OK to save the settings.

There is another way to delete the duplicate entry. In the RUN dialog box, type the command msconfig and press the Enter key. If you want to remove the corrupt/non-working entries, click the “Check all boot paths” button.

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Q. 12. Check disk starts every time the computer is started, even though Windows was properly shutdown. How can I stop the disk check from running every time?

Ans. Download thefollowing file, unzip and then run the reg file by double-clicking it, to stop disk check from running every time on boot up.

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Q. 13. On starting my computer, I receive the following error message every time:

CMOS checksum error, defaults loaded.

How can I stop or correct this?

Ans. This problem shouldn’t occur in new computers as the battery is in-built into the chip and not something that can be replaced.

However, if you have an old computer, and get this message every time you start computer, it’s probably time to replace the CMOS battery, found on the motherboard.

For more details about CMOS battery, please view this post.

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Q. 14. When sending or receiving a message in Yahoo messenger, I get a blank window and can’t see any contents in the chat window. What’s wrong and how to solve it?

Ans. Please download Windows Script from the following links:

Windows 2000

Windows XP

Windows Server 2003

If you are using Windows Vista or 7, it already comes with Windows Script pre-installed. You just need to run the following command from the RUN dialog box or the Command Prompt:

regsvr32 vbscript.dll

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Q. 15. I had to re-install Windows, but after re-installing it, the Standby option is grayed out and can’t be clicked in the shutdown dialog box. How to enable it again?

Ans. Re-install your video/VGA/display driver from the driver CD that came with your computer motherboard or with the video card (in case it’s not an in-built one). Re-installing the video driver will re-enable the standby option.

If you don’t have the driver CD, then go to the video card manufacturer’s website and download the driver to install it.

If you’re unable to find your driver CD and can’t get a driver for your video card online, you may download a driver scanning tool, and install it. This tool will search and update your computer drivers easily.

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Q. 16. I get the classic logon box instead of the new welcome screen in Windows. How to get the welcome screen back?

Ans. Type the command, “control userpasswords” in the RUN dialog box and press the Enter key. On the userpasswords screen, click on “Change the way Users log on or off”. Then, check the option “Use Welcome Screen”.

In case, you get the error,”Uninstall client services for Netware”, you’ll need to uninstall the Netware client services from the network connections properties.

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Q. 17. A strange process named ctfmon.exe always runs in the background. Ending the process through the task manager just restarts it automatically. How to get rid of this strange process?

Ans. Note: CTFMON.EXE is needed for the keyboard layout switching to work correctly, so don’t remove it if you are using this feature.

Open Control Panel and then double click to open Add/Remove Programs. Now, click on the Microsoft Office entry and then click on the “Change” button.

Now, select “Add/Remove Features” and click on “Next”. Now, expand “Office Shared Features” and click on the “Alternative User Input” and then select “Not Available” and finally click on Update. This will permanently remove that ctfmon.exe and your problem will be solved.

You can also use a 3rd party utility, CTFMON-Remover to get rid of ctfmon.exe easily.

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Q. 18. In Firefox, all the bookmarks vanished and the list is empty. How to get them back?

Ans. Type the following command in the RUN dialog box:

“%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles”

Now, open the “xxxx.default” folder, within the Profiles folder above (where xxxx will be random numbers and characters).

Now, open the “bookmarkbackups” folder and can see your bookmarks here. From here, you can import them back into Firefox again.

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Q. 19. Some files’ icons are wrongly shown. How can I get the corrupted icons back?

Ans. You can use any of following methods:

a. Download Microsoft TweakUI from this page or directly from this link. Install it. Run it and click on the “Repair Icons” option in the “Repair” section.

b. Open My Computer and go to:

C:\Documents and Settings\User_Name\Local Settings\Application Data

Replace C: with your system drive letter (where Windows is installed) and “user_Name” with your Windows XP username.

Now there’ll be a HIDDEN file called “iconcache.db”, delete it ,and restart your system. Note that to be able to delete hidden files, you need to have the “Show Hidden Files” option enabled in the Folder Options, in My Computer.

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Q. 20. In Windows XP, all the icons on the desktop suddenly show an ugly background rectangle behind the text. How to make the text transparent?

Ans. Type the command “sysdm.cpl” in the RUN dialog box and press Enter. When the system properties open, click the “Advanced” tab, then click on the “Settings” button under the “Performance” section and enable the option “Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop“. This should take care of your problem.

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Q. 21. The common tasks pane has vanished and is not shown anymore when I open My Computer. How to get it back?

Ans. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, click on “Tools -> Folder Options” and then click the radio button to select the “Show Common Tasks in folders”, under the Tasks section. Click OK to save settings. Now, the tasks pane should be visible in My Computer.

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Q. 22. A Copy To / Move To dialog box opens up automatically whenever I right-click on the start button and select Open. How can I open the start menu folder?

Ans. Open the registry editor by typing the command, “regedit”  in the RUN dialog box and then go to the following key within regedit:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ ContextMenuHandlers\

Now under this key, delete following 2 sub-keys, and your problem would be solved:

Copy To

Move To

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Q. 23. Even after checking the “Show hidden files/folders” checkbox under the Folder Options menu, it gets automatically unchecked and I can’t see the hidden files and folders. How can I see my hidden files and folders?

Ans. Open the registry editor by typing the command, “regedit”  in the RUN dialog box and then go to the following key within regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden

Expand this key by clicking the plus sign and you’ll see 2 more sub-keys – “NOHIDDEN” and “SHOWALL”.

Make sure that the string values of the “CheckedValue” and “DefaultValue” on the right-side pane are “2” and “2” for “NOHIDDEN” and “1” and “2” for “SHOWALL” respectively.

If the values are different, change them and you’ll be able to enable/disable these options from the “Folder Options”.

You can also change the Hide/unhide files’ settings using regedit:

Within regedit, go to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Advanced

On the right-side pane, change the value of “Hidden” to:

1 – To show hidden files

2 – To not show hidden files (i.e., to hide them)

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Q. 24. How can I get mspaint.exe back? I accidentally deleted the file.

Ans. You can use any of following methods:

a. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, in the address bar, type the address – “%windir%\System32\DLLCache”

Within the DLLCache folder, look for the mspaint.exe file, and if its there then copy it to “%windir%\System32\” folder.

b. Insert your Windows Setup CD into the CD drive and go to the “i386” folder. Now, look for the mspaint.exe file, it’ll present there but the last letter of extension will be “_”, i.e., “mspaint.ex_

Now, open the Command Prompt and go to “i386″ folder and type the following command:

expand mspaint.ex_ %windir%\System32\mspaint.exe

c. Type the following command from the Command Prompt:

sfc /SCANNOW

It’ll automatically restore the files. Note that it may ask you to insert your Windows setup/installation disc.

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Q. 25. In Windows explorer, image files aren’t shown as thumbnails, even after clicking the Thumbnails view in the view menu. How can I view the images as thumbnails?

Ans. Open the RUN dialog box and type the following commands one by one:

regsvr32 shdocvw.dll

regsvr32 thumbvw.dll

regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

Restart your computer and your problem would be solved.

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I can’t access Folder Options in Windows Explorer. Task Manager and Registry Editing is also disabled. I get an error dialog box which says that they are disabled by the administrator. How do you solve this hell?

This is a common problem in Windows. When you open the Task Manager, it doesn’t open and the option is grayed out. Sometimes, only the Task Manager is disabled, but many times the registry editing and folder options are also disabled.

Q.1. What is System Restore?

Q.2. How to open or start System Restore?

Q.3. How to open or start System Restore from the Run command box?

Q.4. What are the other  ways to start System Restore?

Q.5. If I restore to a point before a program was installed, will System Restore remove the program?

Q.6. What is restored and what is not restored when performing a System Restore?

Q.7. If I don’t want System Restore to monitor a particular drive, how to do that?

Q.8. How can I see how much disk space System Restore has used?

Q.9. How can I control the disk space, which System Restore uses?

Q.10. Why isn’t System Restore creating automatic Restore Points?

Q.11. Why doesn’t System Restore work on my computer?

Q.12. Can a virus be stored in a Restore Point?

Q.13. How much disk space is used by System Restore?

OR

What are the disk space requirements for using System Restore?

Q.14. When are the Restore Points created?

Q.15. Can I delete the Restore Points which I don’t need?

Q.16. Why are my Restore Points missing?

Q.17. Does System Restore make my system run slower?

Q.18. How do I perform a System Restore?

Q.19. How to create a restore point with System Restore?

Q.20. Is there a way to run System Restore from the Command Prompt?

OR

How to run System Restore from the command line?

Q.21. Can I use System Restore instead of other backup software programs?

Q.22. How to turn on/enable System Restore?

OR

How to turn off/disable System Restore?

Q.23. Can System Restore be run in safe-mode?

OR

How to run System Restore in safe-mode?

Q.24. How to reinstall System Restore?

Q.25. How can I test System Restore?

Q.26. Can I use System Restore to uninstall or reinstall software programs?

Q.27.  What should I do before running System Restore?

Q.28. What happens to User Accounts in the restore process?

Q.29. What should I do after restoring my system to an earlier date?

Q.30. How to Restore a Windows XP system to a previous state using System Restore?

Q.31. What are the limitations of System Restore?

Q.1. What is System Restore?

System Restore is a Windows program which can roll back system files, registry keys, installed programs and drivers to a previous date. You can create a new restore point, roll back to a previously created restore point and undo the restore which you did previously.

By default, restore points of many weeks are created and as new restore points are created, old restore points are removed. You can change the disk space settings for System Restore. You can also disable System Restore, if needed.

System Restore monitors and backs up system files with specific extensions (.exe, .dll, etc.) and saves them for later recovery and use. It also backs up the registry and most drivers.

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Q.2. How to open or start System Restore?

Click the Start button, point to All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools and then click System Restore.

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Q.3. How to open or start System Restore from the Run command box?

Click Start -> Run, type the following command and then press the Enter key:

restore\rstrui.exe

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Q.4. What are the other  ways to start System Restore?

a. Click Start -> Run. Type msconfig and press the Enter key.  When msconfig starts, click the button labeled “Launch System Restore”.

b. Click Start and then click Help and Support.  In Help and Support, click "Undo changes to your computer with System Restore".

d. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press the ENTER key:

restore\rstrui.exe

Follow the instructions to restore your computer to an earlier state, or undo the last restore if available. Note: When restoring a system from the command prompt, an automatic “UNDO” restore point will NOT be created and System Restore won’t  allow a restoration to the current state.

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Q.5. If I restore to a point before a program was installed, will System Restore remove the program?

No, System Restore does not change or monitor program installations. An exception is when the program only contains an executable or only the file types which System Restore monitors.

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Q.6. What is restored and what is not restored when performing a System Restore?

According to Microsoft, the following are restored:

• Registry (note: some current values will persist)
• Profiles (local only—roaming user profiles not impacted by restore)
• COM+ DB
• WFP.dll cache
• WMI DB
• IIS Metabase
• Files with extensions listed in the Monitored File Extensions list

According to Microsoft, the following are not restored:

• DRM settings
• SAM hives (does not restore passwords)
• WPA settings (Windows authentication information is not restored)
• Contents of the My Documents folder(s)
• Specific directories/files listed in the Monitored File Extensions list
• Any file with an extension not listed in the Monitored File Extensions list
• Items listed in both Filesnottobackup and KeysnottoRestore (hklm->system->controlset001->control->backuprestore->filesnottobackup and keysnottorestore)
• User-created data stored in the user profile
• Contents of redirected folders

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Q.7. If I don’t want System Restore to monitor a particular drive, how to do that?

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Q.8. How can I see how much disk space System Restore has used?

a. Start Windows Explorer. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options and then click the View tab.

b. Under Hidden Files and Folders, select the radio button “Show Hidden Files and Folders”, and then clear the “Hide Protected Operating System Files (Recommended)” check box. Also clear the “Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)” check-box. This is the last checkbox under the Advanced settings, so you’ll have to scroll down.

c. Click Yes when a dialog box is displayed. Then, click OK to close Folder Options.

d. Now, check whether you have an NTFS or a FAT32 file system. How do you check if you have NTFS or FAT32 file system? In My Computer or Windows Explorer, right-click the C drive (or your Windows drive, if other than C) and then click Properties.

e. If the file system on C drive is NTFS, Windows won’t let you open this folder, but there’s a solution. Under the C drive, right-click on the System Volume Information folder and select Properties. In the drive properties, click the Security tab.

Click the Add button, and then in the box that’s labeled "Enter the object names to select", type the username  that you use to log on to Windows. This is shown in the image below. If your file system is FAT32, you don’t have to do anything like the above. You can access the System Volume Information folder without any problems.

f. Right-click the System Volume Information folder and click Properties. You will notice a "Size on disk" value in the properties. This is the amount of space that System Restore is currently using for your restore points. See the image below.

Note: Repeat the above procedure for any other drives or partitions, which you would like to check.

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Q.9. How can I control the disk space, which System Restore uses?

Windows is set to use the maximum amount of available disk space for System Restore, by default. If you want System Restore to use less disk space, then do the following: Click Start and then click Run. In the Run command box, type sysdm.cpl and press the Enter key.

On the System Properties, click the “System Restore” tab. If you have a single partition, click the Settings button and reduce the disk space by sliding the bar to the left. If you have multiple partitions, select each partition and then click the Settings button.

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Q.10. Why isn’t System Restore creating automatic Restore Points?

This may happen due to one of the following two reasons: The “Task Scheduler” service  must be running on your computer for System Restore to create automatic restore points. If this service is disabled, System Restore can’t create automatic restore points. To check if this service is running, click Start, then click Run.

In the Run command box, type services.msc and then press the Enter key. Scroll the list of services until you find the “Task Scheduler” service. Make sure that it is set to Automatic and the status says “Started”. In case, it’s set to manual or disabled, double-click it and select Automatic. Then right-click it and click start.

If your computer constantly runs programs, this can be another reason for System Restore not able to create automatic restore points.  System Restore needs the computer to be idle, before it can take a snapshot of your computer. Disable some running programs or the programs which run in the background. Then, check again whether automatic restore points are created.

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Q.11. Why doesn’t System Restore work on my computer?

Here are some basic troubleshooting steps to find why System Restore is not working.

a. Make sure that the System Restore service is running on your computer:

Click Start and then click Run. In the Run command box, type services.msc and then press the Enter key. Scroll down till you see the System Restore service in the list of services.  The status of the service should be “Started” and the startup type should be “Automatic”. If these settings are otherwise, double-click System Restore and change the Startup type to “Automatic” and then start the service by right-clicking it.

b. Also, make sure that the Task Scheduler service is running. In the list of services, above, find the Task Scheduler service and if it’s not set to “Automatic”, set it to automatic and start the service if it is not already started.

c. Make sure that you have enough free disk space available. When your disk space goes below 200 MB, System Restore will not create restore points any more. You should free up disk space for System Restore to work again.

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Q.12. Can a virus be stored in a Restore Point?

Many viruses have the same extension as the Windows executables and other files which the System Restore monitors. So, if your computer is infected with a virus, System Restore may take a snapshot of the system at that time and keep the virus in the snapshot too. Now, if you remove the virus from the computer, but later restore the system to a previous date, using System Restore, the virus will be restored too.

The best thing to do when you suspect or find a virus, is to disable System Restore first and then scan your system in safe mode or using a boot-time scan, if your Antivirus program has that option. But, remember that once System Restore is disabled, all the restore points would be deleted. After the virus is removed, you should then enable System Restore once again, and then create a new restore point.

For more information, see:

How to turn off System Restore

How to create a restore point manually.

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Q.13. How much disk space is used by System Restore? OR

What are the disk space requirements for using System Restore?

The amount of space used by System Restore depends on the amount of free space available on your hard drive. If your hard drive has more than 4 GB free space, System Restore can use about 12 percent of that space at the maximum. If you have less than 4 GB of free space available, only 400 MB space is used for System Restore.  You can control or change the amount of space that System Restore uses, but the maximum it can use is 12 percent of the free space.

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Q.14. When are the Restore Points created?

You can create restore points, manually, whenever you wish. Windows creates them automatically when:

• Installing an unsigned device driver.
• Installing programs which use the Windows Installer or Install Shield  Pro version 7 or later.
• You try to restore the system to a previous date.
• Windows applies updates automatically.
• You restore data using the Windows Backup.
• The computer is operated for 24 hours, since the creation of the last restore point.

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Q.15. Can I delete the Restore Points which I don’t need?

You cannot select the restore points manually, but you have two options to delete the restore points. You can delete all the restore points except the last (or latest) one, or you can delete all the restore points. To delete all the restore points except the last one:

Click Start, then click Run. Type the following command and then press the Enter key: cleanmgr Click the “More Options” tab and then click the Cleanup button in the System Restore box.

To delete all the restore points, simply turn off System Restore, click apply and then again turn on System Restore by enabling it.

For more information, see How to turn off System Restore.

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Q.16. Why are my Restore Points missing?

The most common reason for missing restore points is the lack of free disk space on your hard drive.

When there is less free disk space, System Restore deletes the restore points starting from the oldest one, to get more disk space. Windows also warns you about low disk space. To free up disk space, see this page.

To know more about this problem, visit the following link at Microsoft.

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Q.17. Does System Restore make my system run slower?

You won’t notice any performance loss by having System Restore enabled on your computer. Creating restore points only takes a few seconds and this happens only after 24 hours of system operation, and that too when the computer is idle.

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Q.18. How do I perform a System Restore?

Open System restore and click the Next button. Then, click a bold date on the calendar, and on the right of the calendar, select the restore point to which you want to restore your computer to (if there are more than one).

System Restore restores the previous Windows XP configuration, and then restarts the computer. After Windows restarts, System Restore will tell you whether the restore was successful or not. If it was successful, you’re done . If not successful, it will give an error. Or if you aren’t happy with the restore, you can undo the restore by starting System Restore once again and selecting “Undo the last restoration.”

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Q.19. How to create a restore point with System Restore?

Open System Restore and click the radio button labeled “Create a restore point”. Then, click Next.

System Restore will ask you to type a description for this restore point. Type a meaningful description in the text box and click Create.

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Q.20. Is there a way to run System Restore from the Command Prompt? OR

How to run System Restore from the command line?

Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press the ENTER key:

restore\rstrui.exe

This command can also be run from the safe mode command prompt, if Windows doesn’t start in any mode (normal and safe mode).

Note: When restoring a system from the safe mode command prompt, an automatic “UNDO” restore point will NOT be created and you can’t restore the computer to the current state.

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Q.21. Can I use System Restore instead of other backup software programs?

No. System Restore is not a replacement for backup programs. It’s not meant to backup data files. It only monitors specific system and program files. It backs up these files regularly, but the restore points are available for a maximum of 90 days. If you are low on disk space, System Restore deletes the old snapshots and replaces them with new ones, even before 90 days.

You should use a real backup program or the built-in Windows Backup, to backup your data.  Such backup programs are meant for permanent backup, unlike the System Restore, and you have full control of what to backup and where to backup, what to restore and where to restore.

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Q.22. How to turn on/enable System Restore? OR

How to turn off/disable System Restore?

Open the System Properties by right clicking My Computer and clicking Properties, or by running the command sysdm.cpl from the Start -> Run command box. In System Properties, click the System Restore tab.

On computers which have only a single partition, it’s only possible to turn off System Restore by placing a checkmark in the box labeled, “Turn off System Restore on all drives”. If your computer hard drive has more than one partition, you can turn off System Restore on the individual drives or partitions by selecting that particular drive and then clicking the Settings button, as shown in the image below.

Place a checkmark on the“Turn off System Restore on this drive” checkbox.  Then, click OK (twice).

To enable System Restore, open the same System Properties as you did above, and if there’s a check mark in the box which says “Turn off System Restore on all drives”, remove the checkmark and then click OK. If the above box isn’t checked, you can check the settings for each drive and turn on System Restore for the drive you want, by removing the checkmark on the “Turn off System Restore on this drive” checkbox, as shown in the above image.

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Q.23. Can System Restore be run in safe-mode? OR

How to run System Restore in safe-mode?

When you log on to Windows in safe mode, Windows asks you if you want to run Windows in safe mode, or if you want to start the System Restore. If you click yes, safe mode starts, if you click no, System Restore starts.

For best results, you should always try to run System Restore from safe mode. Note that after you run the System Restore from safe mode and reboot the system, you don’t get the message that the System Restore was successful, until you restart Windows again in safe mode. In normal mode, you don’t get this message, even though System Restore was successful. So, you may want to go to safe mode, once again to confirm whether System Restore was successful.

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Q.24. How to reinstall System Restore?

Warning: Reinstalling System Restore will delete all existing restore points.

Click Start and then click the Run command box. Type in the following command and then press the Enter key:

rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\Windows\Inf\sr.inf

If the Files Needed dialog box appears, click Browse and point to one of these locations:

The i386 folder on the Windows XP CD.

The i386 folder on the hard drive, if one exists.

The i386 folder on the Windows XP SP2/SP3 CD, if you have it.

When the reinstall is complete, Windows gives the following message:

You must restart your computer before the new settings will take effect.

Do you want to restart your computer now?

At this point click YES.

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Q.25. How can I test System Restore?

Start  System Restore, create a new restore point and name it TEST. Then, create a new shortcut on the desktop and point it to the Desktop or any other file of your choice and name it TEST, as shown in the images below.

Now open System Restore and restore your computer to the restore point named TEST.

The computer will reboot and will give a status message, whether the restore was successful or not. If it was successful, the TEST shortcut on the desktop won’t be there now.

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Q.26. Can I use System Restore to uninstall or reinstall software programs?

No, System Restore cannot completely uninstall programs, when restoring to a point before the program was installed. System Restore doesn’t monitor all the files that a program uses, so when you restore the computer to a point before the program was installed, only the files which are monitored are removed/restored. The registry entries are also removed/restored. This can make the program not to work. In some cases, this will leave the program in an unstable state where you can’t uninstall it completely, nor install it properly again. So, it’s recommended that you uninstall and later reinstall any programs which were installed after the creation of the restore point, which you want to restore to.

If uninstalling or reinstalling a program fails, undo the restore, then uninstall the program and do the restore once again. If the uninstall or reinstall still fails, download and install a free registry cleaner and clean the registry. It will remove the improperly installed program from the registry. Then,  you can continue with the installation.

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Q.27.  What should I do before running System Restore?

System Restore should only be used after you’ve troubleshot the computer using other methods. You should first try by rebooting the computer. This simple method may solve your problem. If it does not, then you should try to boot the computer into the “Last Known Good Configuration” option from the boot menu by pressing the F8 key, when the computer restarts.

You should also uninstall any programs that were installed after the restore point was created.

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Q.28. What happens to User Accounts in the restore process?

If you restore the computer to a time before you created the user accounts, the restoration will remove those user accounts. However, the user account names and folders will still remain under C:\Documents and Settings.  Any files and folders in the My Documents folder won’t be restored because My Documents folder is not monitored by System Restore.

If you restore the computer to a point before a user account was deleted, System Restore will restore the user account. However, the user’s files and folders that were in the “My Documents” folder won’t be restored, because that folder is not monitored by System Restore.

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Q.29. What should I do after restoring my system to an earlier date?

When you restore the computer to an earlier date, the files which are monitored by System Restore, will be reverted back to the versions on that date. You should apply software updates to Windows and any other software programs, which you have installed.

Any software program which you installed after the creation of the restore point may not work because System Restore only removes or restores the monitored files. The other files needed by the program remain as they were. This can make those programs unstable, and you may not be able to re-install or even uninstall those programs. You should uninstall any such programs which were installed after the creation of the restore point. Do this before you restore the computer to an earlier date.

If you didn’t uninstall a program and do a restore, System Restore may not completely remove the program. To remove it, you may have to reinstall it and then uninstall it from the Add/Remove Programs. If you aren’t able to remove any such program, use a free registry cleaner to remove the entries for this program from the registry. You can also use Microsoft TweakUI to remove the entries from the Add/Remove Programs’ list.

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Q.30. How to Restore a Windows XP system to a previous state using System Restore?

If you can start Windows XP in any mode (normal mode, safe mode, safe mode with networking or safe mode with command prompt), you can restore your system to a previous state by using System Restore.

If Windows can start in normal mode, log on as Administrator or a user with administrator rights. Then, click Start, point to All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools and click System Restore.

If Windows can boot in any of the safe modes, log on as Administrator or a user with administrator rights. When you get the welcome screen, asking you if you want to start the safe mode, click NO. Clicking NO will start System Restore.

You can also type or paste the following command in the Start – Run command box and press the Enter key:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

or just restore\rstrui.exe

This command can also be used at the Safe Mode Command Prompt.

Once System Restore starts in any of the above Windows mode, restore the system to an earlier time by clicking Next and selecting a bold date on the calendar.

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Q.31. What are the limitations of System Restore?

System Restore doesn’t track every change made to the operating system. It monitors only a few file types in specific locations on the volume. Due to this, some software upgrades may not be completely  reversed by System Restore. Also, there may be problems when you try to run or remove such applications.

System Restore needs some amount of free space on the volume. If there’s little space left on the drive, System Restore will fail to create a restore point. In such a case, when you try to do a System Restore, you see that there is no restore point available to do a restore.

A restore point is not permanent. After a few days, it will be deleted and new restore points will be created. So, if you don’t notice a problem within a few days’ time, it may be too late when you try to do a System Restore, later.

If your system or programs are infected with virus or any kind of malware, System Restore can’t know this and these malicious programs are also backed up when restore points are created.

Since System Restore doesn’t allow users or programs to access the folder where restore points are stored, and its method of backing up is very simple, it may backup virus infected program files. Your antivirus program won’t be able to remove the malware from the System Restore points. There’s only one way to remove an infected restore point – by turning System Restore off. This will delete all the restore points.

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What to do when My Documents folder opens at startup?

One fine day, you start your Windows XP computer and when you log on, you find that the “My Documents” folder opens up automatically. You close the folder, feeling a bit puzzled.

Being curious and wanting to check again, you restart the computer once but this time too, the “My Documents” folder opens up after you log on. You feel irritated. After some time, you become used to closing the My Documents folder every time you start Windows. But you wish to know how it started opening on its own. And whether there’s a way to stop it from opening at startup?

This happens if there’s a registry change in the Userinit value. Use the following steps to remove this behavior. The following procedure tells you to make changes to your Windows registry, so make sure to backup your files. Also backup the Windows registry, before you change anything in the registry. If you do something wrong with the registry, Windows may not start. So, beware. For more information on backup, click here.

1. Click Start ->Run and type the following command and press the Enter key:

regedit

The Registry editor opens, as shown below.

2. Navigate down to the following key by clicking the + sign next to the following, as shown in the images below:

HKEY_ LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

3. When Winlogon is selected in the left pane, on the right pane, carefully look for the key named “Userinit” and double click it to open the value.

It should have a value of

C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,

(The comma at the end is important, don’t delete it. Add it, if it’s not present.)

4. If there’s anything else instead of the exact value shown above, delete it and carefully type the above value and then click OK.

5. Exit the registry editor by clicking on the cross.

6. Restart the computer. After Windows restarts, the “My Documents” folder won’t open up at startup.

What is a Backup?

A backup is a copy of your data, which can later be restored when the original data is lost or corrupted for any reason.

Why to Backup?

Everyone has experienced data loss at one time or the other. When data is lost,  you may be in need of some important files from that data. If you compare the time and money that goes into trying to get the data back, to spending a little time regularly to backup your data, you’ll start backing up your data too. Just a little time spent regularly for backing up, pays off when you lose data.

One of the reasons why people don’t backup is that they think nothing will happen to their computer. But, every computer and hard drive will die or become corrupted someday in the future. It cannot be said when that will happen.

Another reason why people don’t backup is that they are just lazy. They don’t want to backup at the end of a tiring day. They also tend to think that when they come back the next day, their data would be safe.

Another reason for not backing up is spending on expensive backup devices. Even if one wants to buy a backup device, which device should one buy or which one is the best is a question for them which confuses them.

And there’s one more reason why people don’t want to backup – what type of backup to use? People are confused when they hear that there are many types of backups. They aren’t clear as to which type of backup is suitable for them. And they don’t want to sit and learn about something, just to be able to backup!

These reasons make people tend not to backup at all. But, sooner or later, they are bound to repent and after losing some valuable data, they’ll spend on some kind of backup device. Whatever your backup device is, or whatever the backup type, some kind of backup is better than no backup at all.

What are the Causes of Data Loss?

There can be one or more of the following that can cause data loss:

• Hardware Failure, including hard drive failure
• Software Problems
• File or Folder Corruption
• Accidental File Deletion
• Accidental Hard Drive Formatting
• Viruses
• Theft
• Disasters

When to Backup?

The time to backup is now, not tomorrow or later. When you aren’t sure that your computer would be functional tomorrow, is it safe to leave it without backing up your valuable data, for which you have spent a lot many hours? So, better backup now than repent later. Another good time to backup your data is when you are about to make some changes to the operating system, install or uninstall new hardware or a software program, or do anything that may affect the computer.

How often to Backup?

You should backup up important files as often as possible. In the past, creating a backup was a time-consuming and tedious task. But today, there are many good backup solutions available. Good backup programs provide automating the backups. You don’t have to spend time on manually backing up daily. The programs do that for you, every hour or every day – whatever you set them to, once.

It also depends on what amount of data you create and how often. If you create new data daily, then doing a daily backup is a good idea. If you are creating lots of data every hour, then it would be better to choose an hourly backup plan.

How to Backup?

• Manual backup You manually select the files and folders to backup and copy them to the destination device like a CD/DVD or to a USB Flash drive. Manual backups are time-consuming and a task which most people like to avoid doing daily. Manual backups can be useful in case of doing a full backup of your hard disk, using an imaging software program like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. But this is not required frequently, and you can do it once in a while, if you are using an automated backup program.
• Semi-automated backup Backup programs do the backup automatically, but you have to remember and run the program manually to do the backup. If you forget to run the program someday, your data won’t be backed up on that day and there’s a possibility of losing this data the next day.
• Automated backup Automated backups are created regularly and automatically, without your interaction with the backup program. The backup program does everything regularly and efficiently, in the background, once it is configured to do so. This is set once and forget it type of backup, and you don’t have to worry about your data, once you’ve configured it.

What to Backup?

You can backup only the important files. Any files that cannot be replaced and you can’t afford to lose, should be backed up. This includes your typed documents, emails, photos, recorded videos and any such thing that you cannot afford to lose.

Before you configure your backup program, you should go through all the folders on your hard drive and make a list of the ones that you want to include in the backup. This may include folders and files with any personal data, important software and music files that you don’t want to lose, documents, email, address books, bookmarks or favorites, etc.

When you lose data, due to reasons like a corrupt hard drive or an operating system corruption, you have to spend precious time to reinstall the operating system, the drivers, software programs and then restoring the already backed up data. This may even take up a whole day or more.

Using some disc imaging programs like Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image, you can create an image of the hard drive or of different partitions, and keep them on the backup media. Then, when you need to restore your operating system and data, you only have to restore the image from the backup. This is much faster than manually installing the OS and restoring your data.

Difference between Full, Differential, Incremental and Mirror Backups

• Full Backup A full backup is a complete backup. It includes everything that you want to backup. Restoring a full backup is fast because you have to restore only from one set of backup. The drawback is that the full backup itself takes time and is slower than other types of backup. Another drawback of a full backup is, it takes more space on the target device to store full backups. Since your backup program will usually store multiple backups on the target device, there will be many full backups, taking up a high amount of storage space.
• Differential Backup A differential backup is a backup of only those files that have changed since the last full backup. The files which are not changed after the last full backup will not be backed up.If you do a differential backup more than once, each time, it will backup all the files, which were changed since the last full backup. It will take backup of those files even if those changed files were backed up in a previous differential backup.Backups are faster than a full backup, since only a few changed files are backed up. Also, it takes little space even for multiple differential backups on the target device. For restoring all the data, you need the last full backup plus the last differential backup. Differential backups are a little slower to restore, than restoring from a full backup, but faster and less confusing than incremental backups. But, a the time taken for a differential backup is a little more than an incremental backup.
• Incremental Backup An incremental backup is a backup of only those files that have changed since the last backup of any type (full, differential or incremental).For example, if you took a full backup on Sunday and an incremental backup on Monday, the incremental backup would contain any files changed after the Sunday’s full backup. If you took another incremental backup on Tuesday, it would only contain the files changed after the Monday’s incremental backup.Incremental backups are the fastest and take the least amount of storage on the target device. But, restoring is the slowest because you have to restore from the full backup plus from all the incremental backups. It may also be confusing when doing a restore, for some people.
• Mirror Backup Some backup programs provide another option than the above three. This is nothing but a mirror copy of the folder or directory that you specify to backup. After whatever time you specify, the program will copy any files that were changed since the last time, to this mirror backup folder on the target device.A mirror backup is similar to a full backup, except that the files are not compressed, so you can access the backup folder anytime by opening Windows Explorer.  Because the files aren’t compressed, this is the fastest backup method. Restoring is also the fastest, because you only have to copy the folder back to the original location. The drawback is that the storage space needed is more than all other backup types.

Where to Store Backups?

• On-Site Storage This is the most easiest and common place of storing your backups. In simple words, this means to keep your backups in your home or office, at a safe place. This may be fine for normal users, but if your backups contain extremely sensitive and valuable data, disasters like floods or fire in your area can make your backups useless.
• Offsite Storage This method of storing is very good for protecting your data. If there is any kind of disaster in your area, you can still get your data back, if it is lost.
• Online Storage This is also a kind of offsite storage, and very good for protecting your data. But you don’t have to spend on any extra devices for storage. You can also access your backup immediately using an Internet connection. There are free online backup services available, and provide space from 1 – 2 GB. This much is enough for backing up normal documents and images. You can buy more space, if needed.

Two examples of free online backup services are: http://mozy.com and http://www.idrive.com/

To know more about online storage and online backup, view this page.

Where to Backup?

• Floppy Disk A few years ago, when someone mentioned about data backup for personal computers, all that people would think was the 3.5” floppy disk. Nowadays the floppy drive itself is obsolete and you can’t even find it on new computers. Even old computer users have removed it, since floppies are very less reliable and have very low storage space.
• CDs/DVDs Blank writable CDs can hold up to 700 MB of data. These are very cheap. You can also get re-writable CDs which cost just a little more and data on them can be erased many times.On the other hand, you can also use DVDs or re-writable DVDs which hold about 4.7 GB of data. New type of double-sided DVDs can hold much more data. These re-writable discs can be used multiple times for backing up your data.
• A Second Hard Drive You can use an additional hard drive for saving backups. You can also get external or portable hard drives which connect via USB to backup your data. These are very easy to carry around.
• USB/Pen/Flash Drives These are extremely cheap these days, replace the old floppies, hold large amount of data, are much more reliable than floppies and can be carried around extremely easily. There are even mini-sized versions called as thumb drives. They are readily available up to 64 GB and 256 GB versions are expected sometime later this year.If you use them for data backup, make sure that you use two instead of one. Even the ones that have lifetime warranty can fail soon. If you want a better backup option, spend a little more and buy an external/portable hard drive.
• Network This is similar to backing up your data to another hard drive. It’s fast and reliable. If the other computer has a high-capacity hard drive, you can store a large amount of backup data on this networked computer. Also, you don’t have to spend on backup devices. The drawback is that you should know how to network computers and use network resources. If there are any network problems, you may not be able to backup.
• Magnetic Tapes These are normally used by organizations to store large amount of data. You won’t find them with normal computer users, and most users don’t even know what they are. The cost of the device is quite high. They are slower than other devices, when you want to retrieve particular data files, because data is accessed sequentially. They also have a shorter life-span than other devices. They were the only backup medium at one time, for large organizations. But now there are other devices available. Normal computer users won’t want to select this as the backup medium.

Which is the best, free software program to use for backup?

If you search Google with the keywords “free backup software”, you’d get more than 71,000,000 hits. There are many good backup programs and they widely vary in features and ease of use. Many people, however have found Cobian Backup from CobianSoft to be a nice, feature-rich and easy to use backup program. It can backup to local backup devices as well as online / ftp accounts.

If you want help in installing Cobian Backup, click here.

If you want to know how to configure Cobian for local backup, click here.

If you want to know how to configure Cobian for online/FTP backup, click here.

If you want to know how to restore data from a backup made by Cobian backup, click here.

From Wikipedia, an ISO image is an archive file (also known as a disc image) of an optical disc (CD/DVD) in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This format is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO.

They may also have an extension of .IMG or .NRG (Nero’s proprietary disc image format). ISO files are actual mirror images or ghost images of complete CDs or DVDs. ISO images can be written or burned on to discs, using many disc writing/recording programs like Nero, Roxio’s Easy CD Creator, etc.

When you download a file with an extension of .ISO or .IMG, and double click on it to open, if you don’t have a disc image writing program like the ones mentioned above, Windows shows a dialogue box, asking you to choose a program to use for writing/burning the image file.

To use the programs contained in the ISO file, you have to write or burn it on to a CD or a DVD (depending on the size of the ISO file). If you don’t have a disc writing program like Nero or Easy CD Creator, download and install a free program like ImgBurn. It’s completely free to use.

Writing or burning an ISO image file to disc is a little bit different than writing or burning normal data files. But you only have to click the right button in the program to do this for you. You don’t have to worry about how the program works. Examples of ISO files are operating system downloads, like the many Linux distros, and any other bootable discs like the Kaspersky Antivirus Rescue CD ISO.

How to burn .ISO or .IMG files with ImgBurn?

Below, you can find detailed instructions, how to download, install and use the Imgburn program to burn ISO image files to a blank disc.

1. Download the free ImgBurn program for burning ISO image files, from here. After downloading it, double-click to run it. You’ll get the Windows’ Open File Security Warning dialogue box. Click on Run.

2. The ImgBurn setup Wizard starts. Click Next.

ImgBurn Setup Wizard

3. Click the “I accept …” checkbox on the License Agreement page and click Next.

4. Click Next to accept the default type of install.

Click Next to accept the default options

5. Click Next to accept the default install location.

6. Click Next for the default start menu folder.

7. Click Finish to complete the installation and run ImgBurn.

8. This is the how the ImgBurn program looks. You may close the ImgBurn log, but it’s nice to leave it open, since it gives details of what the program is doing. Click the “Write image file to disc” button.

9. On the next screen, select the ISO file, which you want to burn, using the folder button near the top. You can uncheck the Verify check box. If you want to burn more than one disc, you can select the number of copies on the right. Then click on the big Write button (the green colored play button) to write the image to disc.

Click the Write button

10. ImgBurn starts writing the image file to disc and shows the progress bars as seen below. It also gives some status messages about the write operation, in the log below. If you want to eject the disc after writing, you can select the checkbox labeled “Eject tray”. There are other options which you may want to select on the following screen.

Disc Write progress

11. After the disc writing is complete, ImgBurn gives an “Operation Completed Successfully” message and if you have working sound and speakers, music will be heard for a few seconds.

12. The ISO file is written to the disc and you can check the disc. You may need to eject the disc before you can see its contents.

There’s another method to burn ISO files to disc, detailed below.

Using ISO Recorder powertoy to burn ISO files to disc.

ISO Recorder is a free Windows tool using which, you can write or burn ISO image files to CDs/DVDs, using a simple right click on the ISO file in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Just like you write files to a disc, right from within Windows Explorer, you can do the same for ISO files.

To download this tool or for more information, visit the author’s Web page.

After you have downloaded ISO Recorder from the above page, here are the steps to install it:

1. Open the folder where you downloaded ISO Recorder and double-click it to install.

2. ISO Recorder Setup Wizard runs as shown. Click the Next button.

3. Click the radio button labeled, “I Agree” and then click Next.

4. Select “Everyone”, if you want to install it for all user accounts on your computer. If you are the only user, just click Next.

5. Confirm the installation and click Next to begin installation. Then, click the Close button.

Steps to create a CD after you have installed ISO Recorder

1. Insert a blank CD or DVD in your CD-RW or DVD-RW drive.
2. Open the folder containing the ISO file in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
3. Right-click the downloaded ISO file and click Copy image to CD, to open ISO Recorder.

   

   Copy ISO Image to CD

4. This opens the ISO Recorder Wizard. Since you already selected the ISO file by right-clicking it, the path to the file is displayed in the “Image file” box. If you want to select a different ISO file, you can do so by using the “…” button. Click Next to write the ISO file to the CD/DVD.

5. The CD Recording Wizard shows a progress bar and when it is finished, after a few seconds, the CD ejects. Click Finish, and you’re done. You may re-insert the CD back into the drive, to check its contents.

This tool is only able to write or burn .ISO files but you may be able to burn .IMG files by changing their extension to .ISO, before burning them. You can also copy CD to CD instead of burning an ISO file to a CD.