Hiren's Boot CD

Hello all, I've tried to boot from Hiren's boot CD in a VM, It has such nice options, so I booted in mini windows xp(the cd has) and there were tools to run, but the problem is, most of them(registry editors, program uninstallers, and even scanners) only work with the Mini windows XP partition(The CD extracts it's tools into a temporary small partition)and I can't edit the original windows partition, I can only make changes in the mini windows's xp registry, and not the original, primary windows partition registry, some scanners also scan only the mini windows xp partition, any suggestions?

I've just tried it on my host PC, and I still can't change the original windows registry nor uninstall programs.Although I could use the file manager and I had access to the C: drive.Is there a way to access the registry through the C: drive?

So there is no way of accessing the windows registry via hirens?That means most hirens tools are useless.

I thought you could load your systems registry into the registry editor? Not running through a vm but if booting your machine via hirens.

Yeah, I did boot my host machine from hiren's a few hours ago, but I couldn't edit windows' registry.Also, hiren's boot cd has Revo Uninstaller, but I can't uninstall programs from the original windows partition either.

Kaktussoft said:

No, the file is locked

Registry files aren't locked, since that Windows copy isn't running

Emoclaw said:

So there is no way of accessing the windows registry via hirens?That means most hirens tools are useless.

As far as I know, you can't edit a foreign registry, just the one you're running, so regedit from mini-XP will edit a different one.

It isn't that Hirens is useless, it's not meant to do that. You can edit the registry from within Windows itself without needing an external OS, uninstalling programs is easy though the simple control panel applet too. If something happens you can try safe mode of the real OS.

Generally, an external OS cannot handle the innards of the real host OS (like registry) unless a specially crafted program exist for the purpose (like the one that deletes user's passwords). Maybe a program for what you want already exist, but no idea of it.

Kaktussoft said:

It can load any registry it can see and access all files on disk. Unless disk is invisible. VM's don't see the host disk.

The OP already said that he ran it on the real machine afterwards, no longer in a VM.
What are the tools that let you edit a foreign registry from the mini-XP?