Restoring *All* Virtualized Apps after a System Crash

In my past tip I showed how to restore your non-exported virtualized layers after you loaded a system image. But that requires a functioning Windows environment. What if Windows itself fails to boot? What if loading a fail-safe system image means losing all your un-exported layers? This guide illustrates how to solve this problem.

First you need a Windows PE bootable CD. I strongly recommend BartPE for this.

If you don't already have the PE CD then it's not the end of options for you. Use another system to prepare it using the following steps and then perform the recovery on the crashed system.

• If using BartPE:
  
  Download the Regedit PE plugin:
  It's ready to be used with BartPE. Just extract the downloaded archive to pebuilder's plugin sub-folder. Then run the build process and burn the bootable CD.
• If using the plain vanilla WinPE:
  
  Extract the RegEditPE.exe or RegistryEditorPE.exe file from the downloaded archive. This standalone file *should* work just like the full plugin but I've not tested it in plain WinPE. I again recommend preparing a BartPE CD on another system if this doesn't work.

Ok now, boot from the bootable CD and (in BartPE) select Registry Editor PE from programs menu; (In WinPE) run the file you extracted above.

The screenshots below are from my BartPE CD:

Click to view.

RegEdit PE will ask you to select the target windows folder (typically C:\Windows).

Click to view.

Click to view.

It'll prompt for user profile loading, which we don't need here. Select NO.

Click to view.

It'll load the remote registry hives and load regedit.

Click to view.

Click to view.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE_ON_C

Click to view.

Select the 'fslrdr' subkey. Export it to a .reg file on another drive/partition which won't get over-written when you reload the OS.

Click to view.

Click to view.

Now go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM_ON_C. Select 'Altiris'.
Export it to another .reg file to the same location as above.

Click to view.

Now copy/move the whole File Redirect folder (typically 'C:\fslrdr') to the drive/partition selected above.

You've successfully backed up the layers' Registry and File data.
Proceed to re-install the OS or load the clean system image.

Restoring the data:

Move the File Redirect folder (typically 'C:\fslrdr') to its original location.

DON'T import the .reg files yet!

Open the first file in any text editor like notepad. Press Ctrl+H for Replace.

Replace : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE_ON_C

With : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE

Click to view.

Open the second file in text Editor.

Replace : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM_ON_C

With : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM

Click to view.

Now save and close these files.

Dbl-Click Import these into your registry.

Restart System.

All your layers with their related settings should be back to their original state.