Posted by: drakino
Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 09:00
I'm a bit pissed that I am faced with having to reload the Wintendo now, all because of a fatal flaw in System Recovery. Right out of Microsoft's own tech database: "Windows XP includes the System Restore tool, but you cannot start the System Restore tool from a Recovery Console prompt."
Ok. So, when something screws over my system to the point where safe mode won't boot, I can't use the built in recovery tool to rollback to a working state. So, why did I ever bother keeping it enabled?
This all started because I wanted to install Visual Studio 2005 now that it is out. The installer told me that I had to remove .Net 2.0 Beta first (in an indirect way). So I hit uninstall for it, and the .Net 2.0 refused to be removed, also giving a not so useful error with a URL to Microsoft's site (mind you, a non clickable URL and lengthy). I pull up the URL and it explains that error means I have to uninstall WinFX first. Thinking back, I now remember I installed Microsoft Max to see some of the new stuff Vista might offer, and it required WinFX. So I remove Microsoft Max, then go to uninstall WinFX. It's uninstaller churns for a while, then asks for a .msi file long since removed by it's own installer. I hit cancel, the WinFX uninstaller errors out, but this time with a clickable URL. That leads me to a place where I can download the missing .MSI to then uninstall it properly. I download it, and find the Add/Remove programs control panel locked up from the attempted uninstall. So, I hit start, shut down, and choose to reboot.
Upon rebooting, the box just hangs on the Windows XP logo screen with the bar still animating. I reboot and try Last Known Good, same thing. I then reboot and try Safe Mode. Locks after listing the drivers loaded. I try Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Nothing. I then search on how to run the System Restore from the recovery console, and get that lovely message above that you can't.
So tomorrow, I get to spend several hours nuking Windows, reinstalling, and then reinstalling every other program, since the concept of self contained programs in the Windows world is a complete joke.
Yeah, I was running a beta product. And it worked fine. I didn't expect the uninstall to be the reason my system got screwed over. Thank god I don't trust Windows for anything critical, as I'll be able to do work tomorrow on my Powerbook running Mac OS X.
Now to wait for the Intel based Macs, so I can just play Windows games via Wine and be rid of Windows completely.
Posted by: g_attrill
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 10:03
Try BartPE first - you create the CD then boot into a basic type of windows where you can rename the current registry files and then copy a set from a previous restore point. It might be enough to get you back into Windows to either fix it or do a repair install or whatever:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
I had loads of problems getting .net 2.0 off my machine to install something else, the setup kept bombing out and undoing the uninstall, can't remember how I fixed it but I recall it not being pretty!
Gareth
Posted by: Attack
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 12:20
You may also want to try the
XP repair install option.
Posted by: tfabris
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 17:26
Yeah, man, I'm with you. All of that from their own products and installers. The OS is too dependent on intertwined libraries and installers and registry entries and such. Something simple like that bring the whole fricking house of cards down.
And yeah, I second the recommendation of seeing if Bart's PE can help.
Posted by: blitz
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 18:59
Is Vista supposed to eliminate the registry dependency? What were the file types (that were dumped into the Windows directory pre-Windows 95) when you installed a program that were "cleaned up" by the addition of the registry?
Posted by: drakino
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 19:20
I'm glad it was too late last night for me to start trying to recover, since apparently the system wanted to sleep off the problem. Tried booting it in Safe Mode, that worked fine now. So I rebooted to let it try a normal boot, and that too worked fine. Only change was I unplugged a USB data drive I had attached last night. That may have been causing it to hang (why I have no idea), or I did just enough boots for something in the RunOnce registry area to finally finish up something. Ahh, they joys of an OS with minimal logging, no easy way to tell what was occurring. The event log just has a big gap between the last clean shutdown, and the first boot into safe mode today.
Quote:
That is true for nearly all mainstream operating systems in use today.
It may be true, but other operating systems have much better resources available in the way of recovering from something like this. Linux, I boot to a install CD or Live CD and can get full access to the system, and make repairs. I can edit system configuration files with a text editor, not a registry editor. I can easily find a problematic library and restore it since there isn't 10,000 8.3 unfriendly file names hidden away in system32.
OS X, I'd boot to the install CD, and try to reinstall. Odds are it would work, allowing me to just boot up and have everything working again with no reinstall of applications. If that fails, I could do an Archive and Install, boot up, then move my Applications out of the archive folder to restore them. Two hours tops, most waiting for the OS to copy files off the DVD.
Where as Windows programs demand to throw crap in system32 that they can't live without, throw a bunch more crap in the registry, and so on. None of it easily repairable by hand, at least not in any time reasonable compared to just suffering through reloading everything. And using the repair option of Windows usually leaves the system in a similar state. These days from a failure like this, I would have booted to something that allowed me access to the drive, nuked the Windows and Program Files folders, then moved Document and Settings elsewhere. Do a reinstall, install drivers, then look through all my programs not installed into Program Files and reinstall each one.
Regarding BartPE, it might have worked to kick off System Recovery, but thats a test for another day. Back when I worked for Gateway, they had a product called GoBack they shipped on systems. That worked similar to System Recovery, but had so many more ways to recover. Boot up and hit space and it booted a utility instead of Windows. MBR or something else hosed? Boot off the GoBack CD, and have the same utility running to then revert the system, including the MBR back. After this incident, I'm probably going to see if they still exist and buy a copy, since System Recovery seems to be more for "oops, I deleted my recipes Word doc" instead of "oops, the OS broke by looking at it funny".
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 20:02
Good point. At the same time, installing the equivalent under a Unix wouldn't cause the OS to fail.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 20:56
True, but Tom's probably not a Windows idiot, but he was stuffed anyway.
Mmmm. Stuffed Drakino with a white wine sauce....
Posted by: Ezekiel
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 20:59
...and some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [/Lechter]
-Zeke
Posted by: drakino
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 01/11/2005 23:47
The only reason I uninstalled it was because Visual Studio 2005 wasn't smart enough to do an upgrade of .Net 2.0 Beta 2 to the final release. Thus I had to remove .Net 2.0 manually, then found I had to remove dependancies on it first, with that being WinFX.
Oddly enough, it's looking more like the USB drive is hanging the machine on boot instead of something with WinFX being uninstalled. I got it working again, but any time my drive is plugged in, it hangs on boot now. It hasn't ever done this before, and I've been using the same drive for many months.
So I suppose this is more a rant about not having enough information to solve the problem. While the whole text spewing that Linux does while booting might not be pretty, it at least lets me find the problem quicker to then fix it.
I suppose my time on Linux and OS X has really changed my expectations for computers. I expect certain things out of them now, and find more and more those expectations cannot be met by Windows. Especially when I thought a beta product hosed my system, but it turns out more to be a USB drive.
Posted by: tman
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 02/11/2005 07:10
You can make Windows generate a boot log. It's not hugely useful because you just get a list of drivers loading. It doesn't tell you why it failed however but at least it narrows it down a bit.
Posted by: FireFox31
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 03/11/2005 00:27
With that much seriously hardcore beta software on there, you would be best off formatting and reinstalling. FDISK, man.
Seriously though, once you've rebuilt the system, make a Ghost image of it for future reloading. Stash that on a DVDR along with a trusty Ghost boot disk. Then you can try out all the risky software (WinFX, DOTNET beta, etc) and just reghost.
I actually have my Windows partitions set up so C:\ contains only Windows system files (apps on D:, storage on E: and F:). If I'm doing something risky, I'll make a Ghost backup of C:\ first.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 03/11/2005 21:02
I don't bother with the system restore, and disabled that service. I'll never use it and I know it. If my system is hosed enough to need it, I'd rather just reformat and start new anyway.
I'm curious, what is the term "Wintendo" supposed to imply? That's one I haven't heard before and I can't quite figure it out...
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Windows XP System Restore rant - 03/11/2005 21:05
That it's a gaming system only.
