who stole device manager?

confus-ed's ENUM regedit suggestion will work, IF you know what you are doing!!

Geez, Ringo:

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I knew how to reinstall, I just don't like doing it because it takes days to get it the way I like it software-wise and I see no net gain other than a working PC.

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Other than a working PC????
Is that not our goal here?
You have already been messing with this for a couple of days as it is!
If you did the repair installation in the first place, all would have been well by now.
And, NooNoo is correct, you may just have to call to reactivate.

fair enough response, but i'm not spending long periods of time on this at the moment. i can still work with the thing, it just crashes sometimes...hopefully they will be fixed soon. besides, i'm learning at the same time, so next time this happens i don't have to ask!

can someone please give me details on how to do this ENUM thing so I don't screw it up more? i'm confident that i can do it, i just need to know where to go in regedit and what to delete.

I've had a wee look for this enum key and I've found 4 of them in regedit - in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/(ControlSet001, ControlSet003, CurrentControlSet) and also in HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet.

Which of these should I remove to get the desired effect confus-ed mentioned? Should there be a ControlSet001 and a ControlSet003? Can I delete all of the ones in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE?

I have all the new drivers for my kit, so after setting a restore point and backing up the registry I'll be ready to try this.

Since nobody bothered telling me how to do this 'delete enum reg key' trick, I gave it a punt myself. Here are my findings for anyone who ever tries this in XP.

All the entries named enum in HKLM (in System/ControlSet001, System/ControlSet003, System/CurrentControlSet) cannot and I'm guessing should not be deleted. I tried and I think I managed to delete ControlSet003 and then had to do a Last Good Config boot, system restore and a reactivation - the registry got corrupted. The only enum key that can be deleted is in HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG/System but I'm not sure that there's any benefit in deleting that...or at least I didnt see any.

To close, I ended up clearing everything from device manager in safemode and letting it redetect when I rebooted; still getting some BSODs though. If anyone has ideas as to how to do this enum trick, please post. An explanation on how to do it from Confus-ed would be nice since he suggested it in the first place.

By the way, thank you NooNoo for your help.

This is what you want to be able to do

I explained to you in PM that the enum trick is for 9x os's. I explained that I have not done the enum trick on XP.... haven't needed to. Most people do an inplace install to resolve hardware mismatches.

What are you actually trying to achieve? Avoiding having to reactivate? If so, why not just backup the reactivate files as shown here

What is the problem with reactivating anyway? Is it a personal beef about having to activate or what?

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

This is what you want to be able to do

I explained to you in PM that the enum trick is for 9x os's. I explained that I have not done the enum trick on XP.... haven't needed to. Most people do an inplace install to resolve hardware mismatches.

What are you actually trying to achieve? Avoiding having to reactivate? If so, why not just backup the reactivate files as shown here

What is the problem with reactivating anyway? Is it a personal beef about having to activate or what?

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The reason I posted the previous post was to see if anyone else knew how to do something like what I was needing to do. It had been suggested previously that it could be done in XP and since you had said you only knew that it worked with 9x/ME and had only ever done it with them, I decided to see if anyone knew how to do a similar thing in XP. That is all. If something more than "yeah that'll work" had been said in the first place, we wouldnt be arguing over this at the moment.

If you read back, I am trying to solve a number of BSOD issues caused by a new m/board and CPU, but I am not one for reinstalls unless the thing won't even start.

As far as reactivation goes, there is no problem as such - Windows is legal. The problem is with my extreme dislike for microsoft...not the software, as I've grown up on it, but more the companies attitude to customers. I dont like having to do things to make a product I've paid for work, especially if it's costing me more money.

No offence is or was intended by this. I just want my computer to run without BSODs and a reinstall.

Well apologies ... seems I caused more confus-ed-ness, by not being certain which key you delete in xp to do the 'e-num delete trick', you seem to have the key though ! ... so just back up your reg if you ain't sure & give it a whirl ! (you want the master key not the control set ones, they indicate the various hardware combinations your machine thinks its had over time)

Seems to me that you ( ringo2143z ) are the one ignoring 'stock' advice, i.e do a clean install ... I merely made a suggestion, this 'trick' ain't 'windoze proof' ! ... try at your own risk !!!!

Generally I try to make only known 'sound' suggestions that won't break things !! ... this one could break everything ... ;)

Oh bloody edit !!!! :rolleyes:

Turn off system resore, before you do this !

I know I'm ignoring the stock advice, but as I have said I use every problem I have with my PC as a learning curve so I can increase my knowledge of them.

By what you said, are the ControlSet00x keys ok to delete if they'll go? Is there a way to find out which one windows is using? I dont see the point in 2 of them. The enum keys only exist within the ControlSet00x and CurrentControlSet keys.

Why turn off system restore? Will this not just affect recovery chances?

Another thing, I'm not exactly sure how to restore the registry with the backup file if things do go wrong...I've tried before and it wouldnt let me do it in windows or safemode...is there a command method or repair console method?

Thanks

Please bear in mind we are in 'uncharted terroritory' here ;)

If you don't turn off system restore windoze will very helpfully load up your 'last known good' registry & so replace the one you just 'tweaked', because only 'on setup', should have a 'no hardware' set, and unless you add the reg key that fires that bit up it'll decide some corruptions taken place & start doing its 'thing' - but we don't want to add that key because we don't want it to zap all our previously installed proggies ...

Here's some registry backup/restore instructions (I only had a very quick glance!)

The console tool for registry revovery is Bill's brother 'reg' :)

I really think we could have done a complete fresh install & added back all your proggies by now, AND BE SURE IT WOULD WORK !

All this may very well not, infact I'm pretty sure its gonna break!

Doing this enum thing just does dirty things to my PC...so I've come to a compromise. Am I correct in thinking that if I do an "over the top" reinstall it will reset the hardware config? Will this keep all the appropriate entries for my other programs in the registry? Finally, it will get rid of SP1, correct or not? I have it somewhere anyway. Is there not a way of integrating SP1 to the install as well?

I also couldnt find the backup util that is mentioned in the link Confus-ed posted. Doesn't matter too much though.


ta

The big problem is that you have changed the board and cpu, Everytime I change my board I reinstall to avoid the stop errors , I know it is a pain but then I don't spend time trying to fix something that is broken
Now for a good cleaner , Try crapcleaner, It is a nice little program that cleans your system out
http://www.ccleaner.com/update/?v=1.14.072
Click the link download install and enjoy