Tweaking.com will not start in safe mode on my Dell Inspiron E1405 Windows XP

[Eric Norberg]

Tweaking.com will not start in safe mode on my Dell Inspiron E1405 Windows XP machine (it used to).  I am responding to the message on the screen, "Try running the repairs in Windows safe mode. (This will keep third party programs from getting in the way of repairs.) If the repairs still fail, then please post in the Tweaking.com forum for support."  So that is what I am doing.  There were three messages saying "The current repair has failed to start for over 30 sec. Trying again...." -- after which I got the above message.  I have run Tweaking previously on this computer, but updated it to the new version before starting today.  Perhaps I should uninstall this version and reinstall the old version (a couple of years old)?

Eric Norberg, Portland, OR

[Boggin]

Have you performed a chkdsk /r first ?

It's difficult to perform a sfc /scannow on an XP machine unless you have a XP install disk as the volume doesn't usually have all of the files in its i386 folder.

[Eric Norberg]

I hadn't, so I did. After an extensive scan no problems were identified.  So I did a full uninstall of the latest version with Revo Uninstaller, and then reinstalled the older version that had worked on the computer -- 3.9.1 -- from the thumb drive on which I had banked it, and installed and ran THAT -- and it worked.  Perhaps the new version(s) don't work on some Windows XP machines...? Anyway, it seems 3.9.1 will work in cases in which the new version(s) don't, on Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

Thanks...

Eric Norberg
Portland, OR

[Boggin]

Shane normally checks each new version on all versions of Windows but I'll pass this on.

[Boggin]

Can you try some earlier versions to see when it stopped opening in safe mode which should help to nail down why.

https://filehippo.com/download_tweaking-com-windows-repair/history/

EDIT - It doesn't look like those links work any more.

[Samson]

FWIW I have used V4 without problem on a friend's XP SP3 machine, from memory it was V 4.0.6

[Eric Norberg]

I installed the next version down on the list you sent, 4.0.3, and after installation and starting it up in Safe Mode, I immediately got an error message -- the registry backup had crashed. But, it did run the program.  I know the change from "3" to "4" made significant changes, since I had to pay the fee again at that point, but it appears the first "4" version on the list you sent does run on this computer. 

I thought then that perhaps I should re-download the latest version to make sure there is a problem -- since I was able to run the older program, and that could have cleared up whatever was stopping the latest version from running.

So I downloaded and installed 4.0.14 again, and in safe mode it did back up the registry -- and, this time, started running without apparent difficulty.  In fact, it ran a bit faster than 4.0.3.  Took about 33 minutes to complete.  So, I guess all we can suppose is that the older version fixed the problem that had prevented the newest version from running!

[Boggin]

Thanks for trying that and the update.

It would seem that it was computer specific and not the Windows type.

Just for interest, how did you download those versions from that web site ?

[Eric Norberg]

Not quite sure what you mean...? You provided a site with a bunch of links for successive versions, and since it was made available to me through e-mail, I received it on my main Windows 7 computer -- so I downloaded the first version I tried on that, put it on a thumb drive, and ran it on the Windows XP machine.  For the current version, I just got that the usual way, as an update to the first version on the XP machine directly.  Had that not run again, I was going to uninstall it and pick up an intermediate version from the site, putting it on the thumb drive and running it on the XP machine, and narrow down to the trouble spot in that way by trial and error, but that part proved unnecessary.  Does that answer your question?  Thanks for the assistance!

[Boggin]

Yes - thanks, it's just that this time when I tried them, all I got was an info page on that version with no download buttons.

Previously, clicking on any of the links started the download.

[Eric Norberg]

Well, they worked when I was doing the tests...

[Samson]

Yes - thanks, it's just that this time when I tried them, all I got was an info page on that version with no download buttons.

Previously, clicking on any of the links started the download.

This is what I see, download button highlighted in red

[Boggin]

Perhaps that's what I also used but don't remember it.