XP re-install did not re-build registry !!!

Could anyone please explain this to me?

About a year ago I had to re-install Windows to get over a virus, and
even though it was overwriting the old o/s (the set-up process
confirmed this, as it gave me a warning), I noticed later it had not
built the registry from scratch. OK, the virus was sorted, but there
was a tell-tale entry for something that WASN'T standard Windows. It
was nothing important, and was something I myself had once added, but
I had fully expected it to be lost. Very odd, I thought at the time,
but didn't dwell too much on it.

Anyway..... one year on, and I'm again re-installing Windows, but on a
different PC. This time I completely removed and created a new (the
only) partition. Did the install business, yet once again, I happened
to find an entry which again proved it's not starting completely from
scratch!

How on earth?! I thought I had definitely vanquished all trace of
Windows first, this time. I mean, if you had a new PC wih no operating
system at all, and had to put Windows on for the first time, it HAS to
build a new regisitry from nothing then, so......

I'm confused!

Thanks
Max

On 01/26/2014 08:06 AM, Max wrote:


Anyway..... one year on, and I'm again re-installing Windows, but on a
different PC. This time I completely removed and created a new (the
only) partition. Did the install business, yet once again, I happened
to find an entry which again proved it's not starting completely from
scratch!

How on earth?! I thought I had definitely vanquished all trace of
Windows first, this time. I mean, if you had a new PC wih no operating
system at all, and had to put Windows on for the first time, it HAS to
build a new regisitry from nothing then, so......

I'm confused!

Thanks
Max




If you installed XP on a newly formatted partition
then there are /no/ previous registry entires.

You gave no example of the entry you thought was left over from the
previous installation. It's possible, if you are referring to the
computer name...that the mac address was picked up from your router.

Max wrote:

Could anyone please explain this to me?

About a year ago I had to re-install Windows to get over a virus, and
even though it was overwriting the old o/s (the set-up process
confirmed this, as it gave me a warning), I noticed later it had not
built the registry from scratch. OK, the virus was sorted, but there
was a tell-tale entry for something that WASN'T standard Windows. It
was nothing important, and was something I myself had once added, but
I had fully expected it to be lost. Very odd, I thought at the time,
but didn't dwell too much on it.

Anyway..... one year on, and I'm again re-installing Windows, but on a
different PC. This time I completely removed and created a new (the
only) partition. Did the install business, yet once again, I happened
to find an entry which again proved it's not starting completely from
scratch!

How on earth?! I thought I had definitely vanquished all trace of
Windows first, this time. I mean, if you had a new PC wih no operating
system at all, and had to put Windows on for the first time, it HAS to
build a new regisitry from nothing then, so......

I'm confused!

What are you re-installing XP from? An OEM CD? Or a
Recovery/Backup/Slip Streamed/OS Image CD you created? If the latter,
that's probably why you're getting the non-standard Registry. By the
time you got around to creating that CD, your system and its Registry
had becomed "personalized" to your configurations.

Just a guess. You didn't give enough info for anything else.


Stef

Max,

but there was a tell-tale entry for something that WASN'T
standard Windows.

yet once again, I happened to find an entry which again
proved it's not starting completely from scratch!

.... but you did not tell us what it was, which means that all we can resort
to is to guess .. And thats a bit silly when looking at something as big
as the registry.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:
Max schreef in berichtnieuws
...
Could anyone please explain this to me?

About a year ago I had to re-install Windows to get over a virus, and
even though it was overwriting the old o/s (the set-up process
confirmed this, as it gave me a warning), I noticed later it had not
built the registry from scratch. OK, the virus was sorted, but there
was a tell-tale entry for something that WASN'T standard Windows. It
was nothing important, and was something I myself had once added, but
I had fully expected it to be lost. Very odd, I thought at the time,
but didn't dwell too much on it.

Anyway..... one year on, and I'm again re-installing Windows, but on a
different PC. This time I completely removed and created a new (the
only) partition. Did the install business, yet once again, I happened
to find an entry which again proved it's not starting completely from
scratch!

How on earth?! I thought I had definitely vanquished all trace of
Windows first, this time. I mean, if you had a new PC wih no operating
system at all, and had to put Windows on for the first time, it HAS to
build a new regisitry from nothing then, so......

I'm confused!

Thanks
Max

Max wrote:

About a year ago I had to re-install Windows to get over a virus, and
even though it was overwriting the old o/s (the set-up process
confirmed this, as it gave me a warning), I noticed later it had not
built the registry from scratch.

An in-place upgrade (Repair) is NOT the same as a fresh install. A
fresh install has you wipe the partition (format it) before installing
the OS. You never said that you formatted the partition when you did
the reinstall. Looks like you did a Repair instead of a fresh install.

Anyway..... one year on, and I'm again re-installing Windows, but on a
different PC. This time I completely removed and created a new (the
only) partition. Did the install business, yet once again, I happened
to find an entry which again proved it's not starting completely from
scratch!

Deleting a partition and recreating it with the same exact endpoints
(sector offsets) means you still having everything that was in that
partition. This is how partition recovery works if, for example, you
accidentally deleted a partition and then need it back. The partition
table merely says WHERE is the partition, not what is inside of it.
Deleting partitions doesn't touch any of the sectors inside that
partition. Creating a partition doesn't touch any sectors inside those
endpoints. After all, just how long does it take to delete or create a
partition? Milliseconds after you click the Okay button. Obviously the
procedure didn't touch anything in the partition.

You have to *FORMAT* a partition if you want to remove its contents. So
did you do format before you installed the OS? Did you opt to format
the partition during the install of the OS?