Suddenly Windows 7 is not genuine

That's the one :)

I think we may have found the cause :)
Now I'll have to work out what we can do about it - there are a LOT of permissions missing!
Please go back there, and click on the Advanced button - expand the listing so you can see all of it, and then take a snapshot and attach it to your reply.
Also click on the Owner tab - who is the current owner?

Ah - so it's not the permissions that are the problem! - that's all normal so far as I can tell.

Perhaps if we look at one of the affected subkeys?

Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\VSS\Diag\ASR Writer

look at the detailed permissions and post another snapshot

Have you ever had any third-party backup software installed? (perhaps Norton?)

Ah - I coulda sworn i saw it in the output list?

Sony shouldn't be so graceless as to totally screw the machine just because you didn't like their bloatware

We can always add missing subkeys - but I'm unsure what values and data should be in them, as the two systems I've looked at had differing ones.

I'll do some research and see if we can come up with the 'proper' way to do things.

In the meantime, though - try downloading this little program http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/u.../vssfixx64.exe and running it (as Administrator).

then reboot, and run VSSAdmin List Writers again - post the results

Oh well, it was worth a try :)
....back to the drawing board - I have to go out now, so probably won't get back to you until tomorrow - shout if you haven't heard from me by this time tomorrow!

Hi elimak,

I don't have the ASR Writer key either, so it might be a third party thing that Noel has :) Could you try repeating Noel's instructions, but for this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\VSS\Diag\WMI Writer

This is a Windows one :)

Tom