How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

The following Microsoft KB article 307545 describes how to recover from a serious system failure, in which a file becomes corrupted and you can no longer boot the system.

KB307545

It's a fairly complicated procedure and you have to be careful if you have an OEM system as you may get stuck at the recovery console password prompt after restoring the files.

"Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives."

This is a where a program like ERD Commander (now called Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset)comes in very handy. Download a trial version here

Windows 2003 AD additional user info tab

This is a really useful additional tab for Active Directory. You can now see when a users password will expire!

Click here

Incidently Petri has a lot of useful info.

Cisco Wireless Antenna Guide

I came across this whilst researching yet more wireless stuff. It has a lot of detail on wireless protocol, but also has stats and a wireless profile diagram for all Cisco wireless antennas.

Cisco Wireless Antenna Guide