Can this damage be repaired without a reinstall?

I have windows vista home premium with SP1.

Before I installed SP1, I was messing round with stuff in the registry and turrning some services off and a few other things. I also deleted unnecessary files and what not from my windows folder. I do this quite often and 99% of the time it works, my windows is smaller, and it runs faster. My average startup time is under a minute and shutdown takes 5 seconds. Well this latest group of changes was one of the 1% that just screwed me over. Sound quality is terrible in everything. Video playb ack is very stuttered and games are unplayable. I installed SP1 and updated all my drivers afterwards but still it persists.

Is there anyway I can download a program to fix my registry and scan for errors about this because I don't want to start back from square 1 with my vista. I have a very lean, mean OS here and I'd like to keep it that way.

ALso, I turned off system restore...yeah bad move I know but I liked the extra space.

So here are what I HAVE ALREADY TRIED!
-System restore (no restore points)
-Update Windows
-Uninstall/reinstall drivers
-Registry cleaner

Do not tell me "System restore" or "you just need to reinstall drivers" like I have heard before a thousand times, usually right after saying that was what I did.

 

Before you do such things always make a backup...since you turned system restore off. DLing and using registry cleaners and such probably won't help and could possibly make it worst. Though you can try. Try using Ccleaner's built in registry cleaner because that is a SAFE one and won't remove anything needed...As to saying you have a lean mean OS, bootup time with under a minute isn't so hot. When you say under a minute, I'm thinking in the 50-59 seconds, or else you would of said lower. Achieve a bootup of 30-35 seconds on Vista, and that is what I call a lean mean sexy machine. ;]

 

What exactly did you remove from your Windows folder?

Anytime you tweak like this it is good to have a backup plan. You can easily backup your registry by going to File > Export, and saving to a location you can remember. That way if you FUBAR some registry keys, they are easy to recover.

At this point, you may be SOL if you have no way of reverting back to the point before you started tweaking.

You have tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, but have you tried actually physically deleting the .dll files and reinstalling those devices?

 

Yeah you should have followed Les' Vista tweak guide. You really should never delete things out of Windows unless it's old leftovers from an uninstalled program. That's what CCleaner is usually for though.

Also, yeah, boot time under a minute is lean/mean? Like I said, go follow Les' guide, got me down to 18-20 seconds boot time with 5 second shutdown, and it's safer than your method. Might as well reinstall on that note man. It'll do you good.

 

Hi.

You can boot from the vista dvd as if you were going to do an install, but select repair instead.

Regards

John.

 

I tried repair, it's for fixing startup issues. Vista starts fine and runs to an extent but has a lot of running problems.

I also did do a complete uninstall/delete of all drivers before reinstallation, I have eliminated bad drivers as a source of the problem.

I followed the vista tweak guide when it came to removing the windows folders that came with it from startup. The only file I messed with was msinet.ocx and hat was because a program was giving me an error and now that program works. I have no clue why but that's what happened.

 

Try running the command prompt as Administrator and typing the following...

sfc /scannow

This is the system file checker, and if it finds system files that are corrupt or missing, it can replace them if you have a Windows disc in the drive.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310747

 

Let me see your vista machine boot in 18-20. YouTube it

 

I know XP use to allow you to install over an old installation. You typically lost a lot of settings and had to reinstall your programs, but you got to keep your data. I haven't done this on Vista and I am not sure if it is possible.

 

What did you do

 

He's got an SSD, I'm prone to believe it.

 

What kind of non helpful and antagonistic post is this? If you are serious, just PM him.

 

Not repair startup option, thats different.

Do a repair install, which restores all the system files.