Ken Blake said:
Highly unlikely. As you have found out, regedit is one of the most
dangerous tools you can use on your computer. Nobody who isn't
absolutely sure they know what they are doing should do this.
From your description, it sounds very much like you will have to bite
the bullet and reinstall Windows from scratch.
Reinstalling Windows from scratch is a bit premature.
There is a lot that can be done before one needs to consider doing a
reinstall from scratch.
Gerry and Mark are correct.
The Microsoft document Mark referred to (Q307545) could restore Kevin's
system to a point which would give him access to previous restore points.
It may allow him to recovery all his previous registry settings, without the
need to reinstall "from scratch".
At the very least he may be able to “Repair†his current Windows installation.
I have used these techniques recently to recover 2 separate systems, w/o
reinstalling from scratch.
In fact, I even revived a long dead, unbootable partition, by accident.
So, I guess that counts as 3 systems.
Yes, it is not pretty, it is not easy, but it is effective, and worth the
time to do it.
It would be a lot easier if Microsoft had included a WinPE instead of the
Recovery Console on the install disc.
WinPE is a Windows Preinstalled Environment; a bootable CD version of Windows.
It looks like Windows, and works like Windows, because it is Windows.
None of that command line stuff required to use the Recovery Console.
(Windows Vista CDs may boot to a WinPE).