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"Failed to update the system registry"

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7 replies

by lalo

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Can somoene help. I've installed Windows 2000 Pro on 2 workstations and I keep getting a registry error upon executing some applications (Netscape 4.73 and SPSS Data Entry Builder").

When I execute the application I get a small dialog box with the title of the application. In the contents it says:
"Failed to update the system registry. Please try running REGEDIT."

In addition, one of the other applications (SPSS Data Entry Builder) gives me the following message:

Failed to get class type information.

Has anyone ever encountered this? I looked in the MS Knowledge Base and I found the same error message but the applictaion in question was Adobe Acrobat Reader (Article ID: Q255130 or Article ID: Q254957). I tried the suggestions, by guessing, on the registry key for Netscape, but it did not work. I either did not get the correct key, or the other associated keys.

I'd appreciate the help.

7 replies

by garydw

This could be caused by a couple of things.

Firstly, Did you do a clean install of Windows 2000 Professional? If you did an upgrade from something like Windows 98 then a lot of rubbish can be taken along in the registry, Try 2000 on a clean machine and see if the problem still exists.

Another reason for the error is that you are installing software as a user than only has normal user rights, Windows 2000 requires local admin rights to modify the registry and some applications (such as Office 97) need the user to be a Power User of the machine otherwise strange things like you have described can happen.
Microsoft do mention something in the help when setting up local user permissions about users requiring Power User rights to run legacy apps, I'm betting that something like that is affecting you.

Regards,

--
Gary.

by lalo

Thanks. It was a clean install. The Hard drive was reformatted, then the OS was installed. When I installed the other apps I was using the Administrator account. It was only after I logged in as normal user did these errors come up. I may have to set them up temporarily as power users and see if that continues after the first update to the registry.

Another friend said it could be a dll (or dll's) that were overwritten. I'll know for sure on monday. Thanks.

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