1. Make a checklist of your programs

This may sound silly at first, but make yourself a checklist. The easiest way to start this list, is by opening your Start menu and moving from top to bottom. I will use my machine as an example. Go through your start menu and list everything you need and everything you want on a reinstall. Leave out anything you don’t want or need. Below is my list.

• Adobe Reader
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Mozilla Firefox
• Windows Live Mail
• 7-Zip
• Air Video Server
• BlackBerry Device Manager
• Dropbox
• Evernote
• FileZilla FTP Client
• GIMP
• Google Chrome
• Google Talk
• Handbrake
• iTunes
• K-Lite Codec Pack
• MediaMonkey
• Microsoft Headset
• Microsoft Mouse
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Rich Tools
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express
• MySQL Workbench
• Notepad++
• OpenTTD
• Picasa 3
• PuTTY
• QuickTime
• Skype
• Speccy
• Sun VirtualBox
• Torchlight
• WebEx Recorder and Player
• Windows Virtual PC
• WinSCP
• X-Lite

So that’s quite a list, however this covers me in all aspects of the software I use.

2. Break your checklist down

This is starting to sound like work, isn’t it? You will thank me later… Following this process and getting to know what you want on your PC will allow you to reinstall in a fraction of the time it would have taken, the best part is you can keep the list and use it again at a later stage.

So following on, we need to break the list down. I break my software list into three aspects;

• Downloadable and free software
• Software that contains my data
• Proprietary software

Downloadable and free software

For the downloadable software, in general this is free software or software I have bought a license for etc. Going from the list above, the downloadable list would be as follows;

• Adobe Reader
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Mozilla Firefox
• Windows Live Mail
• 7-Zip
• Air Video Server
• BlackBerry Device Manager
• Dropbox
• Evernote
• FileZilla FTP Client
• GIMP
• Google Chrome
• Google Talk
• Handbrake
• iTunes
• K-Lite Codec Pack
• MediaMonkey
• Microsoft Headset
• Microsoft Mouse
• MySQL Workbench
• Notepad++
• OpenTTD
• Picasa 3
• PuTTY
• QuickTime
• Skype
• Speccy
• Sun VirtualBox
• WebEx Recorder and Player
• WinSCP
• X-Lite

Please excuse the fact that it is almost an identical list, most of the things I use are all readily downloadable. From this point, the idea is to go to each piece of software’s website and to download the latest version of the software, saved on a flash disk or DVD. This will ensure that you do as little automatic updating as possible post-install.

Tip: For software that uses a downloader to install, generally there will be an “Administrator”, “Network” or “Business” edition available as well. Download this instead of the installer. This allows you to have a copy on hand, as well as the fact that these editions generally leave out all the free toolbars and other vacuous crap that come with the sponsored download. Skype is a prime example of having a business edition available (Skype thankfully is not an example of bundling software with the downloader, they get it right).

Software that contains my data

Go through your list and see what you do with each piece of software. If it is a viewer of some kind, like Adobe Reader, leave it out, however if is is something that contains your own data, for example my photos in Picasa, put it on this list (you can leave out anything that stores files online or in a cloud, Dropbox and Evernote for example). From the list above, I use the following software for the following reasons;

• Mozilla Firefox – Browsing and saving bookmarks
• Windows Live Mail – Email
• FileZilla FTP Client – FTP Logins
• Google Chrome – Browsing and saving bookmarks
• iTunes – Purchased iPad applications
• Microsoft Office 2007 – Documents
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express – Databases
• OpenTTD – Saved games
• Picasa 3 – My photos
• Sun VirtualBox – My VM’s
• Torchlight – Saved games
• Windows Virtual PC – My VM’s

From the reasons next to the software, I can easily work out what data of mine I need to back up, often the programs themselves allow you to do so. Basically I can see from the above that the following needs to be backed up from how I use my computer.

• My Bookmarks
• My Emails
• My FTP Credentials
• My iTunes applications
• My Documents
• My Databases
• My Photos
• My Virtual Machines
• My Saved games

If you noticed a pattern in the above, then that is a good thing. In Windows, it’s very easy to backup most of your stuff by simply backing up anything with a “My” in front of it. All of the above can be easily backed up either from the corresponding “My” folders on the hard drive, or through the application itself (Chrome and Firefox are prime examples). Email outside of Microsoft Outlook can get kind of tricky to transfer, but that’s another topic for another time.

Proprietary software

This is software that you generally would own, and would most likely be on its own media. All that you need to do here is ensure that you have the CD’s/DVD’s on hand and off you go.

• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express

Tip: To save on your time spent updating, hop online and download the latest service packs for each piece of software, particularly those from the Microsoft stable.

Note: Some proprietary software comes pre-installed on your machine. If you do not have your media from purchasing your machine, contact the reseller and/or manufacturer to discuss the way forward for your format.

3. Back up all folders starting with a “My”

Following on from the second section, go into the users’ folder (either Document & Settings or Users, depending on which version of Windows you are running), and copy any “My” folders that have not been backed up already. A prime example of this from this article so far, is that nowhere have I mentioned “My Music”.   Once you have backed this up you are pretty much good to go.

4. Format the PC and re-install

Pop your Windows disc in and follow the instructions.   When you are done, insert any driver discs that you require loading, these would have come with your PC.   In the case of Windows 7, drivers have been greatly simplified and should download automatically just after installation.

5. Reload downloaded software

Grab the initial list you have and start moving through one by one, installing each one of the packages you have already downloaded.   Note how quick the installation is going now.

6. Reload proprietary software

Pop in the discs for your proprietary software and follow their installation procedures, once they have finished, install any service packs you may have downloaded earlier.

7. Restore your data

All the items you backed up from the “My” section can now be restored, as well as anything else garnered from the “My” exercise above.

8. Get to use your PC two hours after hitting the format button

No need for an explanation here, point 8 says it all…

So that about covers a relatively efficient methodology for re-formatting a PC, perhaps it becomes a mainstream standard, or perhaps one little store adopts it, either way I hope it helped someone.

Best part is, if something goes wrong shortly after the re-install, you already have relatively recent copies of all the software and can reload quickly.   A much better method would be to create an image directly after, however this, as with backing up mail, is another topic for another time.

Enjoy your format!

• First, run msconfig (hit the start button and type it in)
• Next, select boot.
• Then select ‘Advanced Options’
• Up the number of processors to the number of cores you have in your system, in my case this is 4.
• Hit OK
• Hit OK again on the System Configuration window.
• Reboot and see how quickly you boot!

And that’s it.   Told you it would be short and sweet!

Post Situation Analysis: Bye bye snapshots, bye bye VM configs. In other words quite bleak.

Rushed Solution: Mount the original VHD, create a blank snapshot, rename the snapshot files, and launch!

Rushed Solution == Bad Idea

If you have one base VHD with no snapshot, great! Mount it and off you go. If you have snapshots, you could be in for a rocky ride (you are already 25% stuffed transferring an RC hosted VM to RTM). True, it may work when mounting the last image as described in the rushed solution. What I found was that I got a BSOD on login, but after booting into safe mode and then rebooting again it was ok. The problem I encountered on VM’s with many snapshots (5+) was that at the point of booting up normally and logging in, the registry corrupted. Windows restored the registry, however this left the networking components and drivers for Windows in a completely unusable state (even legacy adapters), and the VM’s needed to be reloaded from scratch after copying data to new VHD’s, and mounting those in new VM’s.

Snapshots use a hierarchical structure (Each VHD/AVHD is basically appended onto the previous one) to keep track of changes without duplicating entire drives. The following info won’t get you to a state where you can flip between snapshots (it’s a sacrifice), but it will give you a working machine at the point that you needed it for data recovery purposes, with all data from all snapshot points.

This will merge the latest snapshot into the previous one. Repeat steps 2-7 for each snapshot level. Once you have merged all the snapshots and the parent disk is listed as the original VHD, you have everything ready to to complete the wizard for the last time. You now have the original VHD containing the complete snapshot tree. Finally set up a new machine with the VHD, and recover your data from the VM.

Note: Only Hyper-V in R2 recognises AVHD files in the Edit Disk wizard, if you are using 2008 R1, rename the AVHD extension to VHD.

Note #2: Thank you to all the various Hyper-V related sites that I trawled through to get to this information, unfortunately I cannot remember you all, by far the most informative in content and comments was on “Hyper-V notes from the field“, thanks Robert! Please visit this site too, as he has outlined a couple more ways in getting the VHD’s merged, I simply covered what I find to be the easiest method in my own terms for my own situation.

1. Obtaining the Software

Everyone assumes that setting up Apache has to be a nightmare, and requires you to install Linux first, then customise it, then know how to use the command line interface to configure it and and and and…

The above used to be completely true, however quite a few places realised this and started offering all-in-one solutions that are incredibly quick and easy to configure.   My personal favourite has to be ClarkConnect Community Edition, which is now known as ClearOS Enterprise.   This is an open source system, based on Linux, which installs with a wizard, and offers such features as a caching web proxy, firewall, antivirus, antispam, file sharing (even for Windows!), printer sharing, bandwidth management and of course, MySQL and Apache (for a complete list, please check out ClearCenter’s website).

As with most things that are free, there is a catch, albeit not a very big one.   When you install the software, it will be completely active, however to receive software and security updates for your server, you will need to subscribe to ClearSDN, for the whopping price of nothing.   Only if you require corporate support do you pay, and for a home system, its pretty cut and dried that you don’t really need to have an immediate turnaround on support.   Also, if you are simply configuring a webserver, security updates are for the most part completely unnecessary.

So all you need to do, is visit the download page at ClearCenter and download the ISO file.   At 689MB, yes it’s big, but bear in mind its an ENTIRE operating system plus software.

2. Burning the CD

Next step is to burn the ISO to a CD, if you are on Windows 7 this can be done straight off the bat by inserting a blank CD into your drive.   It may be possible to do so in Vista as well, but I am proud to say I only used Vista for about 45 minutes when it came out and then I reformatted my machine and put XP back on.   Failing this, you will need to use something like Nero or Roxio to burn the ISO.

3. Obtaining the Hardware

This is always the expensive part of getting a server up and running (unless you are buying licenses).   If you take a look on Dell’s website, you will be greeted with price tags of over $1,000.   Don’t let this despair you!   ClearOS is really not that hungry, what with being Linux and all that, so you do not need a huge server.   If you don’t have a spare computer tucked away in a cupboard from a few years back, your best bet is to find a company that resells leased equipment that has reached end-of-life, I personally buy through RentWorks.   Here I picked up 2x Pentium 3 1Ghz rackmount servers (I gutted one to make the other more powerful) for the awesome price of R400, which is about $50 US, not bad huh?

An alternate to actually buying physical hardware, is to download VirtualBox, Sun Microsystem’s alternative to Virtual PC (and so much more flexible).   Install this, and you will be able to create multiple virtual PC’s within your own computer.   You can read more about it at VirtualBox.org.   For the record, this is how I will be doing my installation for the purposes of this post.

4. First Bootup

NOTE OF EXTREME WARNING (OR WARNING OF EXTREME NOTE)! INSTALLING ClearOS WILL WIPE OUT EVERY STORAGE DEVICE ON THE COMPUTER IT IS BEING INSTALLED ON (INCLUDING USB AND FIREWIRE)! MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING A SPARE COMPUTER THAT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MISS ANY DATA ON!

Pop in the CD and boot off it.   The installer is very straight forward in a wizard type format, with every step explained.   You will get to a point where you are asked which mode ClearOS should operate in, Standalone or Gateway.

This is an important bit, if you have 2 network cards in your machine, you can select Gateway mode; what this does is allow you to use this server as a router/firewall/webserver/gateway onto the Internet, so you can actually use the ClearOS box to cache web content (and save you bandwidth!), filter out who sees what and provide you with network security for your home computers.   Should you just wish to host web content for internal testing, then Standalone should suffice.   For this example I am using Standalone.   In Gateway mode, it is worth noting that you can actually expose your server to the web and browse to it, which makes for a nice way of demoing sites to people for other opinions, however this takes a bit more knowledge of networking and IP address configuration.

If you already use a router to connect to the Internet, I would recommend setting your ClearOS machine to use DHCP to obtain its IP address automatically, but if you use a modem and this is the only network computer you have, set its IP address to 192.168.0.1, it will become a DHCP server in that case, and automatically configure your computer!

You will see that once you get to the software modules selection, that this system is quite complete and quite powerful!   With over 20 different modules ranging from VPN to mail to antivirus, you’re sure to be able to do quite a lot.   If you wish to play around, why not select every option?   Selecting all the options will only use around 1GB of hard drive space, so if you have that to play with, it really doesn’t hurt to install everything.   Just follow the on-screen instructions, and if you aren’t sure of something, just go with the defaults.   This system is quite robust, and is pretty difficult to break!

5. Finalising Install

Once the system is installed and you have rebooted, you will come to a red logon screen.   At this point, the system is ready to go.   Make sure you know the box’s IP address before you go back to your normal PC.   When you get back to your PC, open your web browser, and go to https://[your-servers-ip-address]:81/.   This will bring you to a login screen, enter the username ‘root’ and the password you selected in the install to log in.   You will now be guided through a 5-step wizard that will finish off your installation!

You may get a certificate warning when going to the management site, that is only because the certificate is self signed, there is nothing to worry about!

6. Web Management

Here is where the fun starts, you get to manage your server!   For the purposes of this post, I will only be briefly covering the Apache and MySQL portion of it, but as you can see there are MANY options to choose from.   Feel free to go through them and play around!

7. Enabling Apache

From the dashboard of your server, select the ‘Server’ option from the left, and select the ‘Web Server’ sub-option.

From the Web Server option, there are two buttons you now need to select, first select ‘To Auto’, this will start Apache automatically each time the system starts.   Next, select the ‘Start’ button to start the web server.   You will notice that the ‘On boot’ option changes to ‘Automatic’ and the ‘Status’ changes to ‘Running’.

Apache is now enabled!

8. Enabling MySQL

Next, select the MySQL sub-option from the menu on the left.

From the MySQL option, there are two buttons you now need to select, first select ‘To Auto’, this will start MySQL automatically each time the system starts.   Next, select the ‘Start’ button to start the MySQL server.   You will notice that the ‘On boot’ option changes to ‘Automatic’ and the ‘Status’ changes to ‘Running’, as per the web server options.

You will be prompted to enter a database password, do not lose this!

MySQL is now enabled!   (Are you sensing a pattern here as to how easy it is to enable the different services?)

9. Creating the Database

From the MySQL screen, you will see that there is a little notice stating that you can manage your MySQL database through another web interface

Select ‘Go’ to launch phpMyAdmin in a new window (your login username will be ‘root’).   From there you can create your new database from the ‘Create new database’ option.

10. Deploying WordPress

The easiest way of deploying anything to a Linux server from Windows is to use WinSCP, it is leaps and bounds ahead of FTP as far as security goes.   You can download WinSCP from here (incidentally, it handles FTP as well).   The following install is based on the Famous 5-minute Install.

Next, download the latest version of WordPress here and unzip it to a folder on your machine.  Navigate to the folder and rename the ‘wp-config-sample.php’ to ‘wp-config.php’.   Edit the wp-config.php file and enter your database details as follows:

• ‘putyourdbnamehere’ will be replaced with whatever you named your database in step 9
• ‘usernamehere’ will be replaced with ‘root’
• ‘yourpasswordhere’ will be replaced with whatever password you chose in step 8

Save the file and close it.

Next, launch WinSCP.   From the initial window, select ‘New’ from the right hand side, then enter your new server’s details and select login.

The first time you log in to your new server, you will get a warning that the server’s host key was not found in the cache, simply select ‘Yes’ to connect and place the host key in the cache.

You will now be greeted with a window similar to most FTP programs.   To get to the web folder, following the following steps in the right hand pane:

1. Double click the ‘..’ folder
2. Double click the ‘var’ folder
3. Double click the ‘www’ folder
4. Double click the ‘html’ folder
5. You are now in your website’s root folder (/var/www/html/)

In the left pane, navigate to the location where you unzipped WordPress, and drag it across to the right hand pane.   A popup will open, select ‘Copy’ to begin.

Now you can navigate to your server’s WordPress installation by going to http://[your-servers-ip-address]/wordpress/, there you can complete the standard WordPress installation!

Read the documentation on WordPress’ site to get a more comprehensive breakdown of installing to a subfolder or to the root.

Conclusion

So there you have it, you now have your own server AT HOME to run any form of staging or muckabout site!   I trust this post was informative and easy to use, I would appreciate any comments regarding it!

Windows XP

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Run
3. Type in “cmd” (without the quotes)
4. Press Enter
5. When the little black box opens, type in “ipconfig” (again without the quotes)
6. Your IP address will be displayed in the box

Windows Vista and Windows 7

1. Click on Start
2. Select the “Search Programs and Files” bar
3. Type in “cmd” (without the quotes)
4. Press Enter
5. When the little black box opens, type in “ipconfig” (again without the quotes)
6. Your IP address will be displayed in the box

Linux

1. Login to linux via the console (if you aren’t at the console, press ALT+F2, or F3, or F4 etc… until you get to the console!)
2. Type in “ifconfig” (without the quotes)
3. Your IP address will be displayed

should you need to scroll up in the Linux console, hold down SHIFT and press PG UP

That should about do it for now, hope this helps!   If you know Macs well, please pop us a comment on how to check there!

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

No matter how often you uninstall the device and reinstall it, or update the drivers (as per Microsoft’s knowledge base), nothing seems to change the little exclamation mark.   Herewith a solution that worked for me based on a CD-ROM fix also found in the MS KB.

1. Open regedit
2. Make a backup of your registry before you continue
3. Browse to the following branch: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\
4. Browse through the keys there, you will notice that on the (Default) value in most, it names the categories from device manager, ie Sound, video and game controllers, Mice and other pointing devices etc.   Browse through the keys until you find the category that your particular device falls under.
5. Delete any values called UpperFilters or LowerFilters.
6. Restart the computer
7. Reinstall / reinsert the device
8. Voila!

This provided an instant solution for me, and did not appear to affect any other devices on the machine, however you may have to reinstall any software that uses that class of device (for example burning software for CD and DVD ROMs) after removing the filters.

The majority of what I used is copied and pasted from various sources, but also customised for WordPress and its functions. Speaking of functions, that is where you should head off to first.

Shortening your URLs

There is a wicked little URL shortening service that has an openly usable API which is very easy to implement. To edit functions, browse to your current theme’s folder, and edit the functions.php file.   At the end of the file, add the following lines:

<?php

function CompressURL($url) {

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, “http://to.ly/api.php?longurl=”.urlencode($url));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

$shorturl = curl_exec ($ch);

curl_close ($ch);

return $shorturl;

}

?>

This will allow you to share shortened URLs using the to.ly service.   This code was taken from the to.ly API documentation.

For the rest of the steps in this document, you will need to edit single.php.   I placed the code within a <div class=”SocialIcons”> [code for sharing] </div> block.

Facebook

This was the easiest of the lot, which I got from trawling through the design of nomnomnom.co.za (thanks to battica for the code in there!).   Here is the code used for Facebook:

<a target="_blank" title="Facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php $turl = CompressURL(get_permalink($post->ID)); echo $turl; ?>&t=<?php the_title(); ?>" rel="nofollow" class="social-bookmark">
<img alt="Facebook" src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/facebook.jpg"/>
</a>

This should work off the bat (make sure you have an image ready in your theme's images folder).

Twitter

This one was a bit more complex, and took me a while because I had many many issues with the URL compression that was originally suggested in the site I used (cannot remember the site as I closed the tab by accident).   Turned out that it wasn't as plug and play as the author had stated, and I had to play with this for a good hour or more...   Here is the Twitter code I ended up using, any variables that you would need to change for your blog are in bold italic.

<a target="_blank" title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Reading: <?php the_title(); ?> - <?php $turl = CompressURL(get_permalink($post->ID)); echo $turl; ?> (via @nightwulfe)" rel="nofollow" class="social-bookmark">
<img alt="Twitter" src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/twitter.jpg"/>
</a>

Again, make sure you have the required images in your theme folder.   Replace the name after the '@' with your Twitter account name.

LinkedIn

This one was a difficult one, in fact, it still is.   Tonight was my first attempt at php.   Thankfully I have the equivalent of an SCJP, so I could read code and play with functions/methods etc, and be able to understand the WordPress function API.   Having said that, this one is still messing me about.   Don't get me wrong, it does work.   However, I believe it could work better.   The code for this is based on the LinkedIn developer widgets (note that there is a license agreement involved with LinkedIn!).   Again, variables to change are in bold italic.

<a target="_blank" title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>&source=add_your_url_here" class="social-bookmark">
<img alt="LinkedIn" src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/linkedin.jpg"/>
</a>

Yet again, make sure your image is there...   Now, the thing that got me.   As stated with the LinkedIn widgets, there is a variable in the URL called &summary=.   In here, I was hoping to place my post excerpt from within WordPress for that particular post.   I tried various degrees of <?php wp_trim_excerpt("<?php get_the_content(); ?>); ?>, just plain <?php get_the_content(); ?>, and a whole bunch of other methods I no longer care to remember, however all I could get generated in the output string was nothing.   It always stayed at '...&summary=&source=www.sigmasquared.co.za...'.   So, if you know how I can extract my excerpt from a post, please please, let me know in a comment!

RSS 2.0

Last but not least, I wanted my whole site to have a link to the RSS 2.0 feed.   I placed this in my header.php, but really, it is up to you where you want it.

<a title="<?php _e('RSS 2.0 Feed'); ?>" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>">
<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/rss.jpg" alt="RSS 2.0 Feed" />

And, yet again, make sure you have the image in the right place...

So that was my entire afternoon/evening, and I have such a feeling of accomplishment from it!

In hindsight, I could have done this by copy pasting the whole lot from the site I eventually found here at B2B Online Marketing, but as Murphy would have it, I would only find that site once I had finished everything else...

Note: If the code above does not work for you, please leave me a comment, I neatened it up in the article above here and may have wiped out a space or two in the process.

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

To restore the registry is relatively easy albeit drawn out, providing Windows Restore is enabled.

1. Insert the Windows XP boot CD and boot off it.
2. Press ‘R’ to enter the recovery console
3. Select the Windows instance you wish to repair (remember to type the number and not just hit enter)
4. Make a temp directory by typing “md tmp”.
5. Create a backup of the current Windows registry by typing the following commands:
   • copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
   • copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
   • copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
   • copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
   • copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak
6. Delete the current Windows registry by typing the following commands:
   • delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
   • delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
   • delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
   • delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
   • delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
7. Copy the Windows repair registry by typing the following commands:
   • copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
   • copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
   • copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
   • copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
   • copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default
8. The type ‘exit’ to reboot the computer.
9. Get into safe mode by pressing F8 before the Starting Windows screen comes up.
10. Log in as Administrator
11. Open My Computer and then the C drive
12. Click on Tools > Folder Options
13. Under the ‘View’ tab, select ‘Show hidden files and folders’ and uncheck ‘Hide protected operating system files’
14. Close the Folder Options window
15. Open the System Restore folder (if you cannot open the folder, please use this link to find out how to unlock it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531/)
16. Open the ‘_restore{lotsofnumbers}’ folder that is not the current time (use detail view)
17. Inside the ‘_restore’ folder, select a recent ‘rp{number}’ folder, these are your restore points, use detail view for dates.
18. Inside the ‘rp{number}’ folder, open the ‘snapshots’ folder
19. Copy the following files to c:\windows\tmp
    • _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT
    • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY
    • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
    • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM
    • _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM
20. Navigate to c:\windows\tmp and rename the files to the following:
    • DEFAULT
    • SECURITY
    • SOFTWARE
    • SYSTEM
    • SAM
21. Reboot the computer
22. Using the boot CD, get back into the Recovery Console as described above
23. Run the following commands to delete the repair registry:
    • del c:\windows\system32\config\sam
      
    • del c:\windows\system32\config\security
      
    • del c:\windows\system32\config\software
      
    • del c:\windows\system32\config\default
      
    • del c:\windows\system32\config\system
24. Run the following commands to restore the registry you copied from the restore point:
    
    • copy c:\windows\tmp\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
      
    • copy c:\windows\tmp\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
      
    • copy c:\windows\tmp\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
      
    • copy c:\windows\tmp\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
      
    • copy c:\windows\tmp\default c:\windows\system32\config\default
25. Type ‘exit’ to reboot the computer with the restored registry.

You have now manually restored your Windows XP registry!   On a previous attempt at this a machine did need to re-activate with Microsoft, so ensure that you have an active internet connection or a phone handy in order to activate before you log on.

Update (2011/06/12) – To make your life easier, after step 10, open up System Restore from Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools (or select the option when prompted), and restore to the previous restore point available. If you want to show off though, by all means use the above.