Registry Problem - No Sound & Memory Error Msg. System Restore crashes

Hardatwork said:

I recently ran a program called RegOwnit.exe on my windows registry to take ownership of the registry. But before I did that I made a backup copy of the registry by selecting Export and All from RegEdit.exe and saving a file called backup.reg. Since then I've been having issues such as no sound, I can't open "My Computer", "Control Panel", "My Documents", "Recycle Bin" When I try to I get an error message stating "there is not enough free memory to run this program." So I tried restoring the backup I made of the registry by going to Import and selecting backup.reg from there. But nothing changes in the registry at all. I just get various error messages each time I do that such as: "Cannot import C:\Users\Owner\Desktop\backup.reg: Not all data was successfully written to the registry. Some keys are open by the system or other processes." I've even tried doing it in Safe Mode. So my next guess I thought was to run System Restore but that hangs and never completes. The first time it ran I let it sit for 12 hours before I realized it was never going to finish. I've tried running it several more times since then, even selecting older restore points but it always hangs and I end up sitting here waiting for it to complete but it never does. I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit My computer is a HP Pavilion dv4 Notebook PC with 4 GB RAM and 76GB free space on Drive C. Intel Core processor. I don't have any usual configuration. It's practically new. One thing I was able to fix was by following the directions at the thread at: https://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...n-program.html Someone said to make sure All Users has permission to access the registry:

Make sure that System and Users (and just to make sure maybe Administrators and your account name too) have more or less unrestricted access to the registry hive "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\"

So I added Users to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and now I can open My Computer and Control Panel etc, but I still have no sound. In fact when I try to put on an MP3 I get an error that says "Your soundcard driver does not support this type of sample format." What I'd really like to do is run system restore or be allowed to import my full backup of the registry to the point before all of this happened. What's the point of having a tool for backing up the registry and making restore points if you can't roll back to them? Please your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

It is unfortunate that you had to learn the valuable lesson not to use automated registry cleaners in this manner. What methods have you used to attempt the restore? System Restore has a couple different options for running restore if you have not tried all of them.

For future reference, The best way to do a registry backup, in my opinion, is with CCleaner. CCleaner will create a .reg file if you start the registry cleaning process and ask it to save a backup. Once you save the backup, just do not continue through the cleaning process (I am a firm believer after many registry cleaners making a mess of my systems that registry cleaners are bad news on Windows 7). Then if you need to restore the .reg file, just double click it in Safe Mode.

I tried all of the system restore options. None of them complete.

I wasn't cleaning the registry. I was trying to restore a backup and following directions that said to do an Import of the full registry which didn't work at all. So I changed the permissions with RegOwnit.exe thinking I was just adding Owner to it, not realizing it would screw something else up, and not realizing that System Restore doesn't work. What's the point of making backups if it doesn't let you restore them.

Thanks for your future reference, but I could use some ideas on what to do to fix this. I still don't have sound. And how do I fix System Restore since obviously this is a feature that is meant to be working?

Hardatwork said:

I tried all of the system restore options. None of them complete.

I wasn't cleaning the registry. I was trying to restore a backup and following directions that said to do an Import of the full registry which didn't work at all. So I changed the permissions with RegOwnit.exe thinking I was just adding Owner to it, not realizing it would screw something else up, and not realizing that System Restore doesn't work. What's the point of making backups if it doesn't let you restore them.

Thanks for your future reference, but I could use some ideas on what to do to fix this. I still don't have sound. And how do I fix System Restore since obviously this is a feature that is meant to be working.

Ah sorry, misunderstood what RegOwnIt does. I now see its function. May I ask why you were trying to take ownership of the registry to begin with? If you were having problems before using that program and could describe them as specifically as possible, it may point toward why your system restore points are not working.

System restore points sometimes do not work if Windows files are corrupt. Have you tried running SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker up to three times to fix all errors? If it continues to show errors after the third run or if the first run comes back with no integrity violations, we will have to try further troubleshooting steps.

I'll give that a try.

I was just trying to restore a backup I had made of the Registry to remove traces a program I wanted to uninstall. I was following directions found here:

How To Make Backup Of Your Registry In Windows 7 / Vista / XP

But it didn't let me Import the backup and the program keys were still in the registry, so I used Regownit to take ownership of the registry. I put * as the key I wanted to own.

Here is a screenshot of regownit. What it looked like when I clicked Apply.

Ah, okay. If you have difficulty removing a program in the future, use Microsoft Fix it Solution Center: troubleshooting software issues to find the uninstall FixIt tool: Diagnose and fix program installing and uninstalling problems automatically

writhziden said:

System restore points sometimes do not work if Windows files are corrupt. Have you tried running SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker up to three times to fix all errors? If it continues to show errors after the third run or if the first run comes back with no integrity violations, we will have to try further troubleshooting steps.

The system file checker finished with the message "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

That's good news except that it doesn't explain what's wrong with System Restore.

What now?

You can try the Fix It solution for your sound: Diagnose and repair sound playback problems automatically