Winxp Crash

[Ghost-Dweller]

good day to y'all

i messed up recently and i could use some advise on the matter.
I was trying to create a script for autodeleting all temp and cache files (for work) and succeeded to do so ...
BUT ................. (look how big the but is :-) )

when i went on to finetune the to work on xp aswell as nt
i f*cked up a little whilest testing the matter i witnessed it erase a whole lot of other files which i hoped to use again (ntldr, boot.ini, all users profile, ntoskrnl, u name it my script will erase it )

I tried 'to fix the matter by copying missing files to my systemdrive. But list of missing files was getting bigger and bigger at the end i ended up in a continieus loop of rebooting afer the post so i gave in. But at that exact moment i thougt up a "brilliant" idiea

"why not install another winxp next to the one i fucked up ,
so i can try to recover te dataloss"

and ... here it is ... "the million dollar question"

---> Is it possible to copy all windows files to my new installation
Registry, dll files etc etc. So i can rebuild my system, so i can
go on using my old programs without needing to reinstall
my programs.


WELL ???

(and what files/dir's do i need to copy )

[kieran]

If im right what you're saying is you want to install a fresh copy of XP in a dual boot config next to your old one and copy all the progs etc over to end up with basically the same system?

If this is the case i doubt this is possible as the core of the OS, the registry, is gonna be a bugger to config along with the progs etc.

I may be wrong, but even if I am this is gonna be one hell of a project a lot less methinks than backing all data up reformatting and reinstalling programs.

[Ghost-Dweller]

your assumption is correct

isn't the registry packed in a file (like a *.dat file or something)
DLL's can be copyd or inserted all at once
copying the program files shouldn't be that hard.

i mean in theory this should be possible .. not ?
and if it means copying lots of files by hand i could even script it
so i can re-use it when another system crashes.

even if it's takes me all day it's still quicker than reinstalling all my SW (believe me i know) + this could be a nice "learning moment"

so if u know where my registry files r stored, PLEASE SHARE
so i can give it a try

or is there a way to reinstall all system files like there was with windows NT.

thx in advance

[kieran]

Registry hives can be exported to .reg files (from the registry) in fact i believe the whole of the registry can be backed up!! so in effect you could back up the registry then just import into your new registry effectively creating a copy. i do see where your coming from i suppose the only way is to try it. good luck by the way and let me know how you get on.

[Ghost-Dweller]

i did it the other way round,

copied my new winos to my old os without touching the reg settings or dll's. deleted the new os, adjusted the boot.ini.

and voila a working system