Chapter 12: Troubleshooting Common Problems

Overview

Anything that can go wrong, will.

--Murphy's Law

We have discussed most aspects of the registry. Let's now consider some problems that frequently arise when working with Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 but can be eliminated using the registry.

Where shall we start? It's logical to begin with startup problems and problems that prevent you from logging onto the system. Just imagine the situation: Your work is urgent, but the system stops immediately after rebooting. Now it's impossible for you to do your work right away. You're frustrated and wonder how many tries will it take to troubleshoot this problem?

Detailed instructions on backing up and recovering the system registry were provided in Chapter 2. In this chapter, we'll concentrate on several additional but rarely used procedures that may help you get the system up and running after boot failures.