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ecently I was asked to resurrect a very sick Windows XP computer. Someone had installed an unauthorized copy of Symantec Antivirus whose license had expired. I had to remove it.
Conventional removal methods didn’t work, but I found a well-documented manual removal method on Symantec’s website. It included many regedit deletions of registry keys and values. One step called for the deletion of •HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Installer \ UserData \ S-1-5-18 \ Products \ 0DE336A57D5E56D4BAD835DE34152048. I was distracted while performing this step, and didn’t notice that after \S-1-5-18 the display wrapped to the next line, so instead I deleted •HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Installer \ UserData \ S-1-5-18
Oops! This is like sawing off a tree limb when all that you meant to prune was one leaf. The effect was that some Windows applications complained that they needed to be installed.
No problem-o. I ran System Restore, restored to a few days prior, ran regedit, and exported everything in •HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Installer \ UserData \ S-1-5-18 to a .reg file. The next step was to undo the system restore, find the .reg file that I’d just created, and click on it so that it would be imported into the registry.
Then I was able to proceed like I’d not goofed. I love System Restore.
