copying part of the registry

[gbhall]

I have a recent Dell Dimension PC that came with XP home, but I needed to run Win98. It was a pain to install drivers for, but I eventually succeded and it has run fine for 18 months or so.

I subsequently learned that installing Win98 with APCI blocked would have solved all my problems. and I actually did that to other PC's.

Now the original (without ACPI suppressed), needs a new video card and the whole ACPI conflict pops up again to completely prevent the card's drivers working.

As I already have another PC with the desired installation (one with ACPI disabled, ok?) I think it would work fine if I exported HKLM/hardware from the working PC and imported into the non-working one.

My question is, how can I do this ? I fear just deleting HKLM/hardware will leave me with a locked-up PC and will be unable to import the correct version - can I do registry manipulation like this from DOS? Or any other approaches possible ? Last thing I want to do is a full reinstall - it should be a five-minute job !

 

[Nodsu]

Didn't disabling/enabling ACPI also replace a lot of system files? I doubt that dropping in a new registry branch would play well with the wrong kind of kernel..

 

[gbhall]

you could be right

Nodsu, you may well be right, but I would like to give it a shot. If it fails at least I am no worse off....would still appeal for how to safely 'drop in' a new registry branch as you put it.

 

[tweaks_sav]

How to disable ACPI for Win98:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030404105050/http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sheppard.p/acpi.html

 

[gbhall]

thanks to respondants

Both deleting HKLM/enum and replacing enum form a similar machine worked fine. Thans to all repondants for advice.