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General discussion

Lost my Add/Remove list!

Nov 27, 2003 6:02AM PST

Configuration:
AMD Duron 1.3 GHz
Primary Master: 20 GB single drive
Primary Slave: 13.0 GB partitioned
Secondary Master: Asus 5224A 52x 24x 52x CD-RW
Secondary Slave: Iomega 100MB zip drive
Twin 1.44 MB floppy drives
256 MB SDRam @ 100MHz

Primary Software:
Win 98SE (build 4.10.2222 A), fully updated
Windows Media Player 9.0 (build 9.00.00.300Cool
MSIE 6.0 (build 6.0.2800.1106), fully updated
MS Office 2000 SP3, fully updated

I goofed! Had trouble using an application and it froze. So I used Anti-Crash to try fixing it, and a Windows dialog popped up prompting me to uninstall the unused component "My Programs", which I did.

Now, I have no entries in my Add/Remove list, and my Add Remove Plus application also draws a blank when looking for the software list. I also had to reinstall Office as it won't work unless it is shown there.

I assume this is a registry problem specifically, since as soon as I did the Office reinstall from the CD, all components ran perfectly and showed they were at SP3 level of update, meaning the files themselves were always intact, as well as showing the add-in applications I have installed.

Any ideas how I can get back the uninstalled component "My Programs", which it appears was not so "unused" as Windows claimed?

Discussion is locked

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Re:Lost my Add/Remove list!
Nov 27, 2003 6:42AM PST

Hi well one way is to reboot the puter, and when the screen goes blank start tapping the F8 key. THis will bring up the startup menu choose command promt only. Now when the C: promt comes up type scanreg/restore and click enter. THis will bring up a screen with dates, choose one before the problem occured and click enter. Restart the puter and all should be goodWink

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Re:Re:Lost my Add/Remove list!
Nov 27, 2003 8:50AM PST

Thanks Rocky, that did it! Happy

Must admit I had considered that, but dismissed the notion. In the years I've been computing, I've never needed a reg restore, so was under the misconception the backups were for each time a startup is done, not one per day. So, since I'd started the computer a lot today, I figured they were no use.

Ah well, at least I now know the Add/Remove list is a Windows component called "My Programs". Shows yet another flaw in the OS... it should never be asking to remove the core component!

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Re:Lost my Add/Remove list!
Nov 28, 2003 12:27AM PST
"So I used Anti-Crash to try fixing it, and a Windows dialog popped up prompting me to uninstall the unused component "My Programs", which I did."

not familiar with this Anti-Crash program (LIUtilities I presume) but does it by chance make backups of what it removes as SpyBot and AdAware do? Sounds like whatever it is, the message box was attributable to this program misidentifying rather than blaming Windows. "SpeedUpMyPC will automatically find and terminate any applications that look suspicious, until the system starts responding again"
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Hi Ed
Nov 28, 2003 4:52AM PST

Anti-Crash is from Dachshund Software, the makers of Hare. It's meant to be able to recover program freezes and crashes efficiently. Yes, it does have an Undo Repair feature, but when I tried using that, it said the repair wasn't performed by Anti-Crash, but by another application.

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Re:Lost my Add/Remove list! This always worked for me
Nov 28, 2003 2:33AM PST

without having to use the 'restore' feature.

Add-Remove Programs list empty:

Go into Windows Help and enter the word "registry". Among the options you should be given is to check your registry. When you choose that option, you should get a message that Windows can't open your registry and that it would fix it. The system reboots and go to your add/remove programs file and all files should be there!

This might be a much faster solution than trying to restore the registry or using the DOS command for scanreg /fix.

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Re:Re:Lost my Add/Remove list! This always worked for me
Nov 28, 2003 4:59AM PST

Thanks Toni. Hope I don;t need it in future but it's saved. I can't use F8 key either, as the system is too fast at startup and F8 kicks me into the Bios. Had to resort to holding down the F5 key instead.

I'm wondering at this blazing processor speed, if I ought to create a bootable floppy which drops me into DOS to avoid this F-key hit and miss routine.

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Edit your MSDOS.SYS file...
Nov 28, 2003 10:56AM PST
http://www.computerhope.com/msdossys.htm

http://www.thegorx.net/windows/help/msdos.htm

Second link might be easier to understand.

The important one for your purposes is the following added under [options] to bring up the menu every boot:

BootMenu={Boolean}
Default: 0
Purpose: A setting of 1 enables the startup menu. If this setting is 0, then you must press the F8 key when "Starting Windows" appears to invoke the startup menu.

and then this one also added under [options] to control how long the menu shows before booting the default:

BootMenuDelay={Number}
Default: 30
Purpose: This setting is used to set the number of seconds your system will pause on the startup menu. If the number of seconds counts down to 0 without intervention, the BootMenuDefault is activated