Recovering From Corrupted Installation

[JohnJ9]

In working through my scheduled recording woes, I wasn't sure if my problem was caused by my Ceton firmware upgrade, driver issues, or WMC items. I had re-installed WMC's data per some other instructions before generating the support request. Ceton looked over my request and said that my ehHome database is corrupted, as is my Registry database. Their suggestion is to re-install the OS, which is rather draconian. Is there another alternative to doing so? I'm running Win 8.1 Pro. Is it possible to un-install WMC, then re-install the pro pack? If I un-install WMC, is there something that can make sure the registry is clean before going back in? I have never ever ever ever ever used a registry cleaner - something tells me that this is using a coat hanger in the wrong place on a Windows installation. (I admit: I have been a developer for decades, and remember the pain and horror of putting all your pertinent settings for your software in the Win95 registry, only to have some random application scrozzle the thing doing nothing more than using the registry APIs, and now the whole world needed to be re-installed. Obviously, I just don't much trust that registry thing!)

What is the best way to attempt to recover from this? I clearly don't have a working system, and while it is an HTPC, there are some pieces of software installed on it that I'm just not 100% keen on having to re-install if I don't really have to. Is there a good way to start over the WMC portion without having to toss the entire machine?

Many thanks in advance for all suggestions.

[mcewinter]

Unisntalling MC may or may not fix whatever issue you're having with MC but I doubt it will straighten out your registry woes. Reinstalling the OS isn't the worst idea.

I myself, have never reinstalled MC but here are the Windows 7 instructions. Not sure if Windows 8 is really any different, I doubt it.

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reins ... windows-7/

[mcewinter]

I should add that I feel the same way as you do regarding registry cleaners. You can always give it a go knowing that things can only get worse.

[joecrow]

Unisntalling MC may or may not fix whatever issue you're having with MC but I doubt it will straighten out your registry woes. Reinstalling the OS isn't the worst idea.

I myself, have never reinstalled MC but here are the Windows 7 instructions. Not sure if Windows 8 is really any different, I doubt it.

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reins ... windows-7/

In my experience unistalling MC as described above does nothing other than stop the remote green button working! A much more thorough reset of MC can be done by running the "recovery task", please note the TV/channels set will be lost!
Not sure if it works with Win 8 but see here for win 7 http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... ask#p64613

[STC]

This won't be any help to you now but perhaps for the future:

Invest in a good OS cloning app. Clone just before making big/any changes to the system, then you've always got a way out of jail should things go South.

[JohnJ9]

That is actually exactly what I did. I've always been a big fan of Casper from Future Systems, and when I found my installation was somehow corrupted, I reverted back to the clone of the 1TB drive, re-restored the system, and managed to get back before the corruption. What I couldn't tell at the time was that the registry and the WMC database were corrupted.

I'm a huge believer in cloning drives, and have been for decades.