Hive-based registry problem

Hi there,
I am running CE5, using hive-based registry and persist registry on hard
disk. Everything works fine until I installed a new nk.bin. It seems to me a
new build nk.bin won't load the registry file stored by old nk.bin. Is that
true? How CE5 decide to give up persist registry file? Is there a signature
on registry file indicate which version of nk.bin saved the registry file?
Thanks!
Larry

Dean
Wed Nov 30 12:14:09 CST 2005

Yes, there is a hash of built in registry stored with the hives. If the
built in registry changes, the signature won't match and the hives will be
automatically deleted.

This is a good thing. If that didn't happen, your device would most likely
lockup/misbehave in all sorts of strange ways. Remember that all registry
changes are saved in hives, not just the few that you noticed and wanted to
preserve. When you change OS components, the underlying registry also
changes, and you want the deltas stored in the hives to match.

Note that a new nk.bin that happened to have exactly the same built in
registry as the previous will not cause the hives to be deleted. The
signature is on the initial registry, not on nk.bin itself.

--
Dean Ramsier - eMVP
BSQUARE Corporation


"PoolShark" <PoolShark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7D9C8B9E-BC11-453C-88F8-2375E53E1C07@microsoft.com...
> Hi there,
> I am running CE5, using hive-based registry and persist registry on hard
> disk. Everything works fine until I installed a new nk.bin. It seems to me
> a
> new build nk.bin won't load the registry file stored by old nk.bin. Is
> that
> true? How CE5 decide to give up persist registry file? Is there a
> signature
> on registry file indicate which version of nk.bin saved the registry file?
> Thanks!
> Larry

PoolShark
Wed Nov 30 12:56:04 CST 2005

But this will cause big problem for future upgrade of nk.bin at our customer
site. If our customers bought our devices with version 1.0 nk.bin installed.
Later, we released version 1.1 nk.bin and added a new registry key. This
upgrade will cause customer lose all registry settings he modified. Is there
a recommanded way to solve this issue?
Thanks!
Larry

"Dean Ramsier" wrote:

> Yes, there is a hash of built in registry stored with the hives. If the
> built in registry changes, the signature won't match and the hives will be
> automatically deleted.
>
> This is a good thing. If that didn't happen, your device would most likely
> lockup/misbehave in all sorts of strange ways. Remember that all registry
> changes are saved in hives, not just the few that you noticed and wanted to
> preserve. When you change OS components, the underlying registry also
> changes, and you want the deltas stored in the hives to match.
>
> Note that a new nk.bin that happened to have exactly the same built in
> registry as the previous will not cause the hives to be deleted. The
> signature is on the initial registry, not on nk.bin itself.
>
> --
> Dean Ramsier - eMVP
> BSQUARE Corporation
>
>
> "PoolShark" <PoolShark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:7D9C8B9E-BC11-453C-88F8-2375E53E1C07@microsoft.com...
> > Hi there,
> > I am running CE5, using hive-based registry and persist registry on hard
> > disk. Everything works fine until I installed a new nk.bin. It seems to me
> > a
> > new build nk.bin won't load the registry file stored by old nk.bin. Is
> > that
> > true? How CE5 decide to give up persist registry file? Is there a
> > signature
> > on registry file indicate which version of nk.bin saved the registry file?
> > Thanks!
> > Larry
>
>
>

Dean
Wed Nov 30 15:53:40 CST 2005

Not really. This is how the hive registry works. About all you could do is
run a utility to determine reg changes, or scan keys that could potentially
have changed. Then, reapply those changes after the upgrade. Or, ensure
the registry doesn't change and run a setup program that adds your new or
modified reg entry later.

Remember, you can't just apply registry deltas from one operating system
version to another. It simply doesn't work. The nice thing about the hive
is that it enforces the issue. Protects you from yourself.

The reality of all this is it doesn't really matter in the long run. You
are talking about a complete reflash/replacement of the operating system.
That is something that should be considered a complete, start from scratch
experience.

--
Dean Ramsier - eMVP
BSQUARE Corporation


"PoolShark" <PoolShark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2DD0E3E3-C519-40A4-B3A9-183EEF21168C@microsoft.com...
> But this will cause big problem for future upgrade of nk.bin at our
> customer
> site. If our customers bought our devices with version 1.0 nk.bin
> installed.
> Later, we released version 1.1 nk.bin and added a new registry key. This
> upgrade will cause customer lose all registry settings he modified. Is
> there
> a recommanded way to solve this issue?
> Thanks!
> Larry
>
> "Dean Ramsier" wrote:
>
>> Yes, there is a hash of built in registry stored with the hives. If the
>> built in registry changes, the signature won't match and the hives will
>> be
>> automatically deleted.
>>
>> This is a good thing. If that didn't happen, your device would most
>> likely
>> lockup/misbehave in all sorts of strange ways. Remember that all
>> registry
>> changes are saved in hives, not just the few that you noticed and wanted
>> to
>> preserve. When you change OS components, the underlying registry also
>> changes, and you want the deltas stored in the hives to match.
>>
>> Note that a new nk.bin that happened to have exactly the same built in
>> registry as the previous will not cause the hives to be deleted. The
>> signature is on the initial registry, not on nk.bin itself.
>>
>> --
>> Dean Ramsier - eMVP
>> BSQUARE Corporation
>>
>>
>> "PoolShark" <PoolShark@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:7D9C8B9E-BC11-453C-88F8-2375E53E1C07@microsoft.com...
>> > Hi there,
>> > I am running CE5, using hive-based registry and persist registry on
>> > hard
>> > disk. Everything works fine until I installed a new nk.bin. It seems to
>> > me
>> > a
>> > new build nk.bin won't load the registry file stored by old nk.bin. Is
>> > that
>> > true? How CE5 decide to give up persist registry file? Is there a
>> > signature
>> > on registry file indicate which version of nk.bin saved the registry
>> > file?
>> > Thanks!
>> > Larry
>>
>>
>>

Piet
Thu Dec 01 05:00:29 CST 2005

We've had this issue too, and worked around it in one project.

The builtin registry is in your flatreleasedir in *.hv files. You can
save these files somewhere and in future upgrades during makeimg copy
them back to your flatreleasedir using a pre_xxxx.bat file (or manually
but you're bound to forget this). You will have an image then with a
registry that's not its own.

Suppose you have added a component, this will need certain registry
keys and they will not be in the new image. You will have to include
them in your image some way, in a .reg file for example and during the
upgrade add them to the registry yourself (they will be saved in the
hive). The .reg file should contain all keys that have changed from the
initial registry of your first image to the initial registry of the new
image.

After reboot, the hive will be kept because your initial registry has
not changed over the upgrade.

I'm not advising you to do it this way, only letting you know it is
possible. You could just save the important settings somewhere
different from the registry so you customer can live with losing his
hive now and then.

Regards,
Piet