msconfig system configuration utility oops.

Noidly1 said:

I tried to find what was causing issues with my Pc and went through the msconfig utility and unchecked everything in the services tab to see if that would show any improvement. Unfortunately it ended up bricking it and all it does now is show the windows icon and then get a black screen and nothing after that. Since it won't boot, is there a way I can edit what ever file, like the old config.sys file, while using a Linux thumb drive to edit it? Thanks.

Unfortunately all the services settings that you have disabled are held in the Registry, nothing as simple as the old 'config.sys' file that you could edit with notepad.

If you can get it to boot to advanced startup you may be able to restore from a restore point, but it may be difficult to get to advanced startup. You could try booting up and as the windows icon appears turning off the power. Repeat for three or four times and, under normal circumstances, it should boot to the recovery environment, attempt repairs, then end up at the advanced startup screen.

If you have a Windows install usb you could boot from, you should be able to boot that to a command prompt to find and copy your user files to an external drive.

Noidly1 said:

I tried to use restore and it said that it couldn't read a file. Can I edit the registry under Linux?

No. You can only edit the registry using Regedit.exe, that's a Windows program. You can run regedit from a bootable install usb, but it's complicated to edit the registry of the installed system on your C: drive. You'd need to find and load the registry Hive from your non-working system in order to edit it. The Hive you'd need would be the SYSTEM one. There's an example of how to load a Hive in Option Five of this tutorial.

Enable or Disable Elevated Administrator account in Windows 10

Option Five in this tutorial should help you find where the services are held in the registry, that would be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services on a working system.

Start, Stop, and Disable Services in Windows 10

This tutorial may help you decide which services are essential.

Restore Default Services in Windows 10

Editing the registry requires that you know exactly what you are doing, if not you may do more damage than good.

If I were in your situation I would probably do all I could to recover all my user files, booting from a usb (Linux or a Windows install usb) so I could copy them to an external drive. Then I would clean install Windows.

I tried to use restore and it said that it couldn't read a file.

Could you clarify that please?

Did you boot from a bootable Win 10 disk and via Repair your computer to Advanced Startup and so to System Restore?
(You'd need the appropriate password).

Else try the second answer here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-4fb2bc7ceab8

Similar/more:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-74869ce0437c

This is a relatively common scenario which you can research further if you wish.

I'll assume you don't have a recent 3rd party disk image- which is so frequently recommended to be created regularly and routinely so you can recover from difficult situations.

Bree said:

No. You can only edit the registry using Regedit.exe, that's a Windows program.

Sorry but that just isn't accurate. Using Windows (or even a live Windows build using re-direction), you can also use reg.exe.

You can also use PowerShell cmdlets to amend the registry.

It's been a long time since I last had to create one but MSI build tools can write to the registry.

Even 3rd-party scripting tools like AutoHotkey and AutoIt can read/write the registry.

Easier still, just use the downloadable Offline NT Password & Registry Editor.

At the end of the day the registry is just a huge flat-file plain-text database (albeit split into sections aka 'hives')... that needs to be treated carefully.