Please help! - Did my whole OS get corrupted?

Hi,

This is my first post in the forums, so I apologize in advance if this is not the proper place for this question.

I booted up my Win 7 (32 bit) PC this morning and noticed that it was not connecting to my wireless network. I went to check the network settings in device manager and I got the message "The specified service does not exist as an installed service".
I can see the file devmgmt.msc in the C:\Windows\System32 folder, but when I run it from there I get the same message "The specified service does not exist as an installed service"

I am also seeing this same message when I insert my Windows 7 CD and try and re-run the setup.

Even if I try to run anything as an administrator, I get this message "The specified service does not exist as an installed service"

Any Ideas on what is going on? Is this some sort of Malware? Is there any way of recovering from this?

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!

The link below shows some steps on how to fix this problem.

The specified service does not exist as an installed service - Microsoft Answers

REMEMBER TO BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE DELETING STUFF.

The following registry adjustment seems to be working for some people to fix this problem.

1. Open the Registry Editor. (Click Start and Run regedit.exe)

2. Go to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BBBFC1
-08002BE10318}

3. Right click the above key, choose Export and save the file as backup.reg.

4. Delete the LowerFilters value in the right panel. (NOTE: Under the key, there
are also some sub keys such as 0000, 0001. Please double click them and delete the
LowerFilters value.)

Apparently there are certain A/V's that can also cause this problem.
the specified service does not exist as an installed service - Microsoft Answers

I get the same message "the specified service does not exist as an installed service" when I try to run regedit.

Okay, now I am curious has to whats going on with you. In fact, I joined this forum just so I could post replies and provide assistence. So, I hope you jump back on here soon and give an update as to your situation.

While I love the Keep It Simple signature, WHS, I think that the repair install should be the last option. There are some other tricks that could possibly provide relief. Jag915, whats the deal with safe mode? Are things the same, or are they the way they should be? Can you even boot into safe mode?

If I may, here's what I want you to do:
1. Open a command prompt as Administrator and type "sfc /scannow" without quotes. Then go to your C:\ icon and right click select properties. There should be a tools tab on the window that comes up. Check now button is what you want but it cannot check now so choose scheduale and restart your computer.
2. Still now relieve? Okay its time to do the regedit adjustment mentioned above by Chev65. Here's how... Put your Windows 7 cd in (any kind will do even a repair disc) and boot into the cd. You are not doing an install you want to repair system advanced tools to command prompt. Open Regedit....
Note: You can also manuave around your system via Regedit by using the right-click.

That is it for now because I need more information unless doing the suggestions works. First, did you recently attempt to move any system files to another harddrive (i.e. Program Files, Users, ProgramData)? Can you Task Manager or is that not working? If it is how many processes are running?

Okay, that is all I got for now. My bag is still filled with tricks so do not worry. I just don't want you to jump the gun and run the repair install and it busts or you just get so pissed you clean install...

I think you are going to give him more detail - like how to find the hive he needs, how to load it - the precise steps to back up the key from winre, how to delete the filters, and how to unload the hive.

Bit tricky for newcomers.

Thanks for the comments, unfortunately I ran out of time.

After I posted my reply, I did go into safe mode an was actually able to run regedit and delete the Lower Filters registry key. Unfortunately it had no impact and the problem did not go away.

To provide and update:
I was able to boot up in safe mode, but even in safe mode I was having problems...for instance instead of getting " "The specified service does not exist as an installed service" message, in Safe Mode Device Manger opened showing no devices (whole thing was just a blank box where the device tree shoud've been). So safe mode was better (like I could get regedit to run) but many things still didn't work.

It is very strange, some local apps work fine (Word, Excel) some other apps give me the same error, and almost all the diagnostic tools I tried gave the same ""The specified service does not exist as an installed service" error. I searched for several hours through technet articles and anything else that looked possible.

The only drives I could see in Explorer were the C: drive and the DVD Drive. I put my Windows 7 disk in and it would not autorun, and I got the ""The specified service does not exist as an installed service" message when I tried to manually run setup.exe

It is a work computer and I don't have the original install disk so the repair install is not an option (I don't have the EXACT install disk as it was created from a Corp IT image). In addition the computer would not even recognize any USB portable drives when I plugged them in.

Based on my lack of progress and the responses here, I pulled the hard drive from the PC and dropped it into an enclosure so I could pull my key data onto another PC.

I have shipped the laptop off to Corporate where it will wiped clean and re-imaged. So I will be down for 3 days while this gets done and then will need to spend at least half a day putting my data back and probably the next week re-installing all the apps that I had on it. I made zero headway and burned half a day, I needed to make a decision today in order to insure I was up and running next week.

I don't know what happend, I basically shut it down in the evening, and when I booted it up in the morning it would not connect to my network (which was the first clue there was a problem). However all the system functions got messed up as I explained. I didn't install any new software or move any system files.

I don't know if it was malware, greyware or some sort of corruption. It just sucks that it hosed up the whole system.

Thanks to everyone for their replies and advice. I would be interested in understanding how to " find the hive he needs, how to load it - the precise steps to back up the key from winre, how to delete the filters, and how to unload the hive"

This experience was very frustrating, I did a lot of PC tech support years ago (Windows 95/98 days) and am more of a user on Win 7. But I hate how everything in Win 7 is "wizard" driven and when it can't fix the problem...you are basically SOL.

Deleting the lower filters was about the only fix I could find for this, I looked around for a decent amount of time to try and find a fix for this problem, so sorry it didn't work.

I would have suggested a system restore which would put you back to a point in time where everything is working. I'm not sure if you tried that or not.

Other than that, having a system image handy really helps in situations like these. Windows file recovery works very well for this although ideally you would need a separate hard drive to store the system images on.

Thanks for the help. I actually did run across that same item you posted, but I did not try it because it was referring to Windows vista. I wasn't sure if it was a valid option for Win7.

As I mentioned, it was a corp machine and per their policy system restor is disabled (explanatin I was given is that Virus's can hide out in the system restore file). So basically I am SOL and will get a new re-imaged machine later today. So I'll be spending this weekend putting my apps back on

Well, I am sorry to hear that you ran out of time but am glad that you no longer have to stress on this issue. I also apologize that I was not able to provide more assistence in a faster manner. Time is all of our enemies it seems... I just wish there was more hours in the day.