Wm Goat

I got a convertor Labor Day weekend in anticipation of the rush, used my $40 Govt issued coupon card at Walmart. Got a Magnavox pass-through box. After the coupon (which was used just like a gift card), the box cost me $10. I have a roof mounted antenna with a booster and a directional motor on it. What a diff the convertor made! My previously poor signal cleaned right up with the 4 primary stations out of Madison Wi (Im about 40 miles sw of there), and I got additional sub channels that Ive never seen before. Looks just like cable! Im sold. Get some occasional pixelling due to the distance Im from the city, but its far better than what I had before. To use it, its just like the old cable boxes. I leave my set on channel 3 and change channels on the box using the remote. The install went seamlessly, and the initial power on of the box searched for all channels in the area, just like a TV does when you first power it on. I got a pass through box (typically an upgrade - read the box to make sure that you have this option) because I still wanted the ability to watch regular channels till they all convert (not all of them in Madison are digital yet). And dont forget: a VCR needs it too if you tape off of reg TV so I connected my VCR after the box in a daisy-chain fashion. It will stay on channel 3 as well, but I cant do channel changing auto-records anymore cause I have to set the box to the channel that Im recording. So those of you that are waiting, apply for a coupon before they run out of them (dtv.org), and get a convertor asap. Feb is coming and you dont want to be caught without one. I suspect that convertors will be hot items for Christmas....if you can find them. (Walmart said that they get in 20-30 per week and they dissappear as fast as they come in. And i havent seen a big box store that has a web site i.e. Bestbuy, Circuit City, etc. sell them online yet. So if you find them, grab it before someone else does.) Or get a satellite or cable/phone-digital TV hookup and you wont need a convertor.

Ive used CCleaner for several years now and do appreciate that fact that the registry is backed up prior to any changes. However, being the proactive animal I am, I want to know how to use this backed up .reg file just in case a change I apply screws everything up. Theres no info on this in the help files. I know that if the OS comes up to any mode, I can simply import a saved .reg file using regedit or by clicking on the old .reg file, but lets consider the worse case scenario....a pc that is totally unbootable due to a corrupted registry (and all the copies that are auto-created by Windows - especially the first one available in safe mode - are hosed as well). To fix this, I would want to go back several weeks to use a .reg file that I know that works, and am willing to accept that any changes made between now and then are gone. (Wonder if I could just do a system restore to an older restore point to get the old reg back as well???? Not sure if system restore only brings back older executables and dll's, and the registry from that date, or if it just brings back the executables and dll's. But if I cant get to safe mode, this is a moot point anyway.) So if I boot into safe mode, it uses the current registry (if I remember my windows training correctly). I could then simply import the old registry using regedi and reboot to full mode. Buts lets presume that it wont even boot into safe mode. Now what is the procedure? Ive seen that you can boot off a BART PE cd, but that process establishes a temp os and uses its own registry settings, and not whats on the machine. So, if I use a bart cd, is there a way to mount the existing ntfs file system, somehow make an import or copy the .reg file into place, and then try a reboot? If so, where should I place the replacement file (path location)? Also, I trying to do research on using the .reg file, Ive read that .reg files are inadequate for a true registry restore, and that you have to have the hive also. (see http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt). If this is true, whats the workaround for this if CCleaner only saves a .reg file without the hive?