[geeks] The Registry (?)

[Jon Gilbert]

On Aug 30, 2008, at 11:10 AM, Alois Hammer wrote:

> 1) Never, ever swap a motherboard out from under Windows.  You're  
> lucky
> it booted.  You really need to wipe the machine and reinstall.
>
> 2) Yes, it could be using DirectX.  The latest redist is here if  
> you're
> in the mood to update, but don't count on it to actually fix anything:
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c1367bc3-4676-481a-bfaa-5c15d1d7199d&displaylang=en
>
> 3) I rely on RegSeeker (free) from Hover, Inc. for all of my Registry
> cleaning.  It requires a lot of thought and manual intervention, which
> is the way Registry cleaning should work.  I may or may not be able to
> tell you whether or not a specific key can be safely tampered with.
> Disk/partition backups are your friend.  Be extra-extra careful when
> checking the "Obsolete services" box.  It says experimental for a very
> good reason.


Well, I guess I am lucky it booted. But it did. As far as wipe &  
reinstall, that's not really an option, since I don't have any of the  
install disks or serial numbers today. I will try and get them,but  
even if I do, I don't know if it would help, since this kiosk is a  
turnkey system that has a customized Windows made for the kiosk (alt- 
tab disabled, cannot control-alt-delete, etc.). So ideally, I would  
very much like to know if it is possible to get this to work *without*  
having to "wipe the machine and reinstall."

I did DirectX update but that didn't help. I'm wondering now if  
updating .NET would be more the thing to do, since the error message  
is directly related to a .NET class. In fact I think that the kiosk  
incorporated some open-source volume-setting code which can be found  
here:
http://bytes.com/forum/thread246970.html
MIXERLINE_COMPONENTTYPE_DST_SPEAKERS,type,out seems to be being sent  
to .NET but for some reason it's not working.

I'm curious as to why Windows cares if you swap motherboards out from  
under it... As long as you give it the drivers for the new  
motherboard, why wouldn't it be happy? And if it's not, how do you fix  
that?

And when you say registry cleaning should require thought and  
intervention, that scares me, since I don't know anything about  
registries. Or else I could probably fix it *without* a cleaner app,  
right? I mean what good is the cleaner app if you already know enough?  
Sorry for the noob questions but that's where I'm at. Thanks.

Lionel Peterson wrote:
 > I would have gone with an Intel MB, they have a few microATX choices.

Well, why? The Intel MB seems to cost a lot more for the same  
features. And since we're looking at doing this with, y'know, like 36  
computers, it would cost another $1000 at least, to go with the Intel  
mobo's. I figured I'd see if the cheaper board would work first, since  
if it doesn't, I can exchange it for the Intel one and then try that.
-
Jon Gilbert
PGP fingerprint: 7FA9 B168 73CA A698 DD9E  2DF2 EE1A 3E73 3119 741F