After uninstall... In XP & Vista was able to activate after deleting all Roxio, Sonic, Sonic Solutions, & Macrovision related keys/values -- i.e. search in Regedit for Roxio & Sonic & delete keys that only effected Roxio & Sonic, delete values when the key refers to other software as well.

Notes:
Deleting just Roxio & Sonic keys under HKCU\Software & HKLM\Software was useless.

Knowledgebase & other sources advise backing up registry by exporting entire registry... Personal experience suggests that this is useless -- merging the .reg file storing the entire registry didn't/doesn't work, AND, merging a .reg file DOES NOT delete keys/values, so if you added something wrong, it's still there and wrong! Alternatively setting a restore point does back up the registry, & if/when restored, should remove added keys/values. HOWEVER, please be aware that if you dual boot with Vista, Vista restore points can be deleted when you boot into another OS like XP.

Problem (in my opinion) seems to be Macrovision, which (also in my opinion) has a history of screwing up the implementation of their copy protection. In Vista notice to activate mpg2 can occur long after working install. Roxio EMC9 software may refuse to start after disconnecting network, suggesting monitoring of system. Regardless the method of disconnecting network to force manual activation dialog seems moot -- activation fails without actually attempting network access in my experience. Obviously efforts to turn off firewalls etc will not help in that situation.

Just as a fyi - the recommendation to back up the registry prior to going in to edit it is nothing to do with merging or otherwise manipulating it. It's just a failsafe that, IF you manage to mess it up too badly during the edit, you have a good working copy to replace it with. Think of it as a spare wheel - sits doing nothing most of the time but gets you out of a jam when something does go wrong

Actually I can't think of anything it accomplishes...

No offense, but it appears to me to be just some dogma that's repeated because everyone else always, well, repeats it... FWIW, I find it a bit amusing that as often as I've seen the recommendation to export the entire registry, I've never seen any accompanying statement of what to do with it in case worse comes to worse.

If your registry gets so screwed up that windows won't work, restoring a restore point in safe mode can get you back. If windows still works but the registry's screwed up, restoring from a restore point can put it back.

A .reg file on the other hand can just be merged with (or rather into) the existing registry. If a value is present in both the registry & the .reg file, the value in the .reg file will be used. If a key is present in the .reg file, but not the registry, it will be added (along with any sub keys & values) to the registry. Any keys in the registry before the merge will be there after the .reg file merge. Unlike 95 & 98 etc., there is no one registry file that can be substituted for the current copy. And if you try to merge a .reg file containing the complete registry with your existing, running registry, in my experience it won't work -- the registry contains live values, and windows is constantly reading/writing to it... System restore has to reboot because of that.

Again, no offense (implied or otherwise) towards anyone intended, but with the restore tool right there, can't imagine how or why what appears to me some myth got started. I could of course be wrong, and there might be some command I've not yet come across that if issued in repair console or something can swap *all* the registry files. But even if there was, I can't imagine it'd be less work than restoring a restore point you set just prior to editing the registry.

Thanks

Though rare, I have seen the restore not take. If that happens, what do you do?

What is Macrovision? I've never heard of it. Is it a part of Roxio?

Ever use Google?

Macrovision is a company that creates electronic copy prevention schemes.
Copy protection.
http://www.macrovision.com/

Thanks very much Nerus.

"Ever use Google"?

- Ever thought of just answering the question? Honestly, this is why I hate using forums. I find they're always full of smart-Alecs with chips on their shoulders.

Also, the written word often doesn't have the full picture we are accustomed to in a face to face conversation. He may have been joking or a light prod to make the extra effort yourself.

No harm, no foul. Don't sweat the little stuff. We have bigger problems to focus on, like getting this software to work as advertised.

[ For the *L* of it I'll try again -- I either apparently misplaced an earlier reply or it got yanked...]

In my experience XP's restore does a decent enough job with the registry, but can (& often does) have problems if too much has changed re: files &/or folders. In fact I recommend if setting a restore point prior to software install, & if you're going to restore, go through the un-install routine before restoration.

So anyway, IMHO you're very right in pointing out system restore's weakness. OTOH personally I think of it as better than nothing -- an *at least there's a shot* sort of thing before restoring from backup. And to directly answer your question: "If that happens, what do you do?" Restore from backup.

FWIW... If anyone's curious get the Sys Internals Regmon &/or Process Monitor software & run it for a moment or two. The amount of registry activity may surprise, and it illustrates the difficulty of replacing the entire database while it's being read from and written to -- including by the process that would replace it.

thanks

Can't see anything to disagree with what you say but for those who are prepared, system restore, system backups, the use of saving files and images to external drives are all things we are aware of but many rarely do. I do make images of my drives about once a month for my home systems. Office systems get an incremental image update nightly and complete images weekly.

You are right that the backup is just a failsafe. However, exporting the whole registry from within Regedit is not the way to back up the registry. The export function in regedit is really only intended to backup individual keys. The way regedit lays out the registry does not reflect the registry's contents exactly. The registry is actually organised in hives: System, Software, SAM, Security and User hives (one for each 'user' which includes local service, default,etc.). Regedit displays many of the keys in those hives in a different order, and in fact duplicates some of them. For example HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is an echo of (some of) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE which itself includes parts or all of Software, system, SAM and Security hives. Similarly HKEY_CURRENT_USER is an echo of the corresponding User hive that appears under HKEY_USERS. So you can probably appreciate that using export function in Regedit with My computer key highlighted results in a mess.

Use ERUNT (free) to backup the individual registry hives.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/index.htm

The detailed info link explains in more detail why exporting the whole registry from regedit is not the way to do it.