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Have you tried installing MySQL and then uninstalling right after the installation if that would be able to trick Windows to let you pass the repair process?

I thought of that, but I can’t find where to download the installation program. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

I don’t know if this has any bearing on Windows 7 or not. In XP once your disk got very far behind the installed updates from MS it would not do the repair install. That’s how I got involved in slipstreaming.
Joe

My updates are current, but that’s one of the reasons for the repair install. I seem to have a lot of problems applying updates. For some, they seem to install correctly, but on rebooting it says the update fails and reverts to the previous configuration. Sometimes it takes several attempts to apply the update, but sometimes it never works and I have no option but to hide it. I’ve never been able to install IE11 because of this.

Instructions for manually uninstalling SQL Server 7.0 can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276044

Jerry

I can’t see anything in there that applies to me. It first says to remove SQL with Control Panel, but it doesn’t show up there. It then says to remove several registry entries, none of which exist. There is nothing called MSSQL on my hard drive.

Check your Services to see if a SQL Server service is running. It may have been installed as part of another product.

You can try the free version of Revo Uninstaller to see if it detects SQL Server.

Joe

No sign of SQL server in Services. I already use Revo and it doesn’t show up there.

I’ve not found a website or program that can handle every type of .pdf, so sometimes I have to try several before I get something usable. Another option is http://www.pdfonline.com

Robert, have you attempted to do it in the opposite direction, I.E. right click the desktop, new shortcut.

Yes, I can install a desktop shortcut using this method, but it’s much easier to right click on a filename and select “Desktop (create shortcut)”.

Can you isolate the time in which this change occurred to reasonably choose a restore point prior to the change to see if the contents of the Sent To folder are restored to the context menu? System Restore in Windows 7 is much more effective than in earlier versions, and restores much of the Registry to the state existing at the time of the Restore Point snapshot.

Unfortunately, this change happened several weeks ago. I did try system restore when I first discovered it, but it had no effect. I guess by the time I noticed it any restore points from before the change had already been deleted. I’ve been wondering whether there are registry keys that control this behavior that might have been altered or deleted. For example, there is a registry key for “HKEY_USERSS-1-5-21-2079903068-2061136744-2126316483-1001SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerFileExts.DeskLink”. It has one subkey, “OpenWithList”, but this is empty. Are there other keys that contain “Desklink” that I might be missing? If so, I could try reinstalling them and see if that helps.

Robert, type ‘cmd’ in start menu search box, right click and run as Administrator. type ‘scannow /sfc’ without the quotes.

Ran it, got this message: Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

Try this method listed in How To Geek. Most likely this will work for you.

This method describes how to insert a new shortcut into the Send to folder. As I said, the shortcuts are already in the Send to folder. They just don’t show up when I right-click on a filename. All I see are shortcuts to applications.

Many sites use an old version detection script that only checks the first digit of the version number. Now that the version number is two digits, these scripts give nonsensical results. If you don’t mind complaining to the webmaster, I certainly encourage that. But as for a workaround, it could be a challenge…

When I visit the home page at http://www.pbs.org/ in either IE7 or Firefox 3.5, the player loads as expected. Is it possible that you have a very high level of security as your default and ActiveX is blocked for that domain? Or perhaps it is one of the various PBS servers that has a problem and I just didn’t run into it.

The home page viewer works for me as well. This is the site I’m having trouble with:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/why-we-love-cats-and-dogs/video-full-episode/4673/

Let me know how that works for you.

thanks

You should not have more than one real time anti-malware program running at a time. At some point they will conflict in using resources and lock your system.

Joe

Does this mean that I should uninstall Security Essentials if I’m using McAfee Total Protection? I’ve had a problem with intermittent lockups since installing Win 7 a couple of months ago.

Try this Lounge Article by Fred langa titled: Delete files that Windows labels ‘undeletable’
Or google: How to delete undeletable files+Windows 7

Another way around would be to go back and custom instal with a quick reformat.
…Sooner or later those undeleted files are gonna bite you rump.

I guess another method would be to boot a usb with free dos or something,
and systematically deleted them from a dos environment. Wouldn’t recommend it
if your not familiar with the syntax though.

Here’s a strange story. I tried using GiPo@MoveOnBoot as Fred suggested. It turns out that some of the files in those old XP system restore point folders are shortcuts pointing to various documents files. When I used GiPo@MoveOnBoot to delete them, it not only deleted the shortcuts, it also deleted the files they were pointing to, even though they were on a separate drive. Fortunately I had backups. Also, GiPo@MoveOnBoot only deleted files, not the folders. Long story short, I downloaded Unlocker and it worked like a charm, getting rid of folders and files and not touching the document files. And I regained 11 Gb of disk space.

I was also able to remove the XP boot files without any negative effect, which is where this thread started. If you’re trying this at home be careful not to remove bootmgr, since it’s a Win 7 system file even though it has a date prior to installation.

Make yourself a repair disc before doing anything else.

You purchased an upgrade version of W7 and did the “custom” instal???

You can’t “upgrade” from XP to 7, only clean instal via the “custom” instal method,
but you certainly can “migrate” files over from the XP instalation with the MS tool.
I know “ntdlr” should’nt be there, so you have either migrated some things you should’nt have by mistake, or are dual booting.

Think back over your instalation method, see if you can find any miss-steps along the way. Many of those files should’nt be there.

I did the custom install method, but I didn’t reformat the boot drive. I also have a file called _restore{B8609072-8601-4A45-BAE6-A4353D6C0D3A} in System Volume Information, with about 6 Gb of folders containing what looks like old restore points from XP. I can’t delete these. When I try, a box comes up telling me they’re being deleted but they’re still there afterwards. I’d like to get rid of them and regain the space. I’ve tried doing it in Safe Mode, but no luck.

Your best bet would be to disable System restore and re-boot. That should delete old restore points. You can then re-enable it.

Joe

That didn’t get rid of the earlier restore points, but it did stop any new restore points from being erased. Interestingly, each Win 7 restore point seems to take up anywhere from 1.5 Gb to 3 Gb, whereas all the XP restore points (94 of them) took up 6.5 Gb altogether. It doesn’t look like you can keep too many restore points without eating up alot of disk space.

Now I’ll see what happens when I manually delete the earlier files.

Thanks for the tip.

I’ve been having the same problem. I’m running Home Premium, not a dual boot. I have a 100 Gb C: drive, and System Restore is set to 100% disk space usage. I tried doing a repair install with no improvement. When I checked the System Volume Information folder, I found a folder called _restore{B8609072-8601-4A45-BAE6-A4353D6C0D3A}, with 94 subfolders all called RPxxx, where xxx is a number. Altogether these folders are taking up 11 Gb of disk space. Each of these subfolders contains numerous files of different types. Since the time stamp on these folders is from before I upgraded, I’m assuming they are XP restore folders, and I’m wondering whether they are somehow interfering with the Win 7 restore points. Again, Win 7 will create restore points during an upgrade or if I set one myself, but they are gone the next day. I have heard that formatting the partition and reinstalling can eliminate the problem, but I’d rather avoid that since I just spent two weeks installing all my programs and setting everything up. Is it possible to just delete the files remaining from before the upgrade or will this cause more problems?

Attached is a .jpg of the System Volume Information folder. I upgraded on March 3.