Error Accessing The Registry trying to merge backup file

[mlschelpat]

That is the error I get after right clicking the backup file, selecting MERGE then replying OK to warning message. Windows 7. I'm the only user so I have administrator privilege.

registry editor error message.rtf

[Nergal]

Open regedit and try to import from within the regedit application

[mlschelpat]

I still get "Cannot import: ... "Error Accessing the Registry" even though I'm in the registry (I made a change in hkey_local_machine to insure I had authority).

[hazelnut]

Try in safe mode.

[mta]

Windows 7. I'm the only user so I have administrator privilege.

not necessarily so. you have an Admin level account, which Windows still decides what you can & can't do. only the Administrator account has administrator privileges.

if what @hazelnut suggested doesn't work, find regedit.exe, right click and Run as Administrator.

And/or also try, when in RegEdit, right click the HKEY in question, Permissions and make sure Full Control is ticked for your Group or User name.

[mlschelpat]

Thanks for responses "Stay calm" & "Power". I was having other issues also that, I discovered, preceded the registry backup (self caused because I tinker with my PC a lot) so I just did a clean (re)install. For what it's worth: my event logging tasks wouldn't start and numerous searches for Win 7 log issues asked if a registry cleaner had been used so I was trying to restore my registry to an earlier date. They never specifically said that a Reg cleaner caused the problem and I had used Ccleaner's numerous times in the past with no problems. Since the registry merge wasn't working for me I restored a system backup much older than the oldest registry backup and "oh crap" the log wasn't working then either. There was no solution to be found to fix the Windows logging task failures other than reinstall so that's what I did. I'm using a program "EAZ-FIX" now and I'm taking a snapshot before I install every program or make any changes and then I test the log functions. If I find the culprit I'll go back to the last good snapshot and can the culprit. Finally when I get all of my software reinstalled and before I do any registry cleaning I'll take a good backup. Funny thing was I didn't really need the event log. I was just curious about what it contained when I discovered it wasn't working. C'est la vie.