BleepingComputer.com: Regedit Is Not A Valid Win32 Application When Installing

Hey guys,
I was trying to install a program and at about 90% I recieve an error message saying "regedit is not a valid win32 application". I also get the same error message when I go to run and type in regedit. I can get into my registry by typing regedit.exe and regedt32, so I am thinking maybe there is something else on my computer calling itself regedit. I searched for regedit and regedit.* and found 2 hits under WINDOWS\help .. 1 hit under WINDOWS and another one under WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386. Any help would be greatly appreciated in resolving this problem, I really want to clear it up so I don't have any problems installing software. Thanks!

Event ID 7000 and "%1 Is Not a Valid Win32 Application" Error Message When You Start a Service

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=812486

Here is a Microsoft KB article on this error it should help.

I'm sorry to bother again... hopefully I'm not being slow but I don't quite understand these instructions. The service that is not able to open is Regedit itself.. I'm not sure where to find this in the registry... I'm just really confused. Thanks for the reply, I'm a bit new to using the registry.. any help would be appreciated

I would suggest printing the article out and then finding someone you can trust and that knows about registry editing. If you are not familiar with editing the registry it isnot a good thing to do. One goof up and you are kaput - done and finsihed. The registry is only for someone with experience and should not be performed by a novice.

Yhis fix should solve the problem for you. On getting someone to help you may I suggest a computer user group in your area and talk to the president of the group he/she will be able to point out someone with the qualifications you need.

I do wish you well take care.

Well, really the problem is the program that I'm trying to install is trying to open regedit.. and it must be running it under the name regedit, which gives the error.. Is there any way I can change it to regedit.exe in the installation? I'm not worried about messing with the registry.. and I can put quotes around a command line in the registry value... I just don't know what the service name would be for the registry itself (or if the service name it is referring to would the program im installing.. in which case I still can't find the service name) Thanks for your replies Thor, I appreciate it.. Is there anyone that can help me resolve this?

7 Files found on my XPPro SP2 system (searched for "regedit"):

regedit.exe - C:\Windows
regedit.exe - C:\Windows\$NtServicePackUninstall$
regedit.chm - C:\Windows\Help
regedit.hlp - C:\Windows\Help
REGEDIT.EXE-1B606482.pf - C:\Windows\Prefetch
RegEdit.exe - C:\Program Files\jv16 PowerTools\Backups (from the free version of JV16 Power Tools)
regedit.exe - C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386

Now - a program that invokes regedit during the installation? I haven't seen this even though I've installed thousands of programs that have modified the registry on the systems that I use/work on.

Makes me wonder if there's something funny going on with the install. Please let us know the name and author of the program so that we can research it more thoroughly.

It's a cakewalk program.. I don't know whats going on with it, but it is a popular company so I think it is probably legit... it is probably something screwy on my end

Conduct a search on your computer for regedit.com

There is malware that will install this dummy, 0 byte file on your computer.
Conduct a search for it and see if you find it.

nope.. no entries for any regedit.com ... thanks for the reply though

hey Romine...just a thought...but could you be trying to install program that is meant for a different O.S...

Kenith

I don't believe so... it still wouldn't explain why it says that when I type regedit into run anyways... I think that is the problem... hopefully someone can help me, I really wanna use this program Thanks for replies

Is this the url for the program?: http://www.cakewalk.com/

If so, which one of the programs are you using?

yup.. thats the right company.. its sonar 5 .. thanks

This is software for doing audio work and for some reason it is looking at the regdit program from Microsoft and it does not find it to be the right one or there is actually something wrong with the regedit program and Sonar installation is letting you know about it.

If you have jsut purchased this Sonar product from Cakewalk I would suggest calling their tech support for this. They have all of the fixes for their products and they usually work rather well.

If you can not call Cakewalk I would like to know if regedit works. Please go to Start, Run and type regedit and click OK. Does this bring up a window for regedit? If Yes you can click the red X in the upper right corner and exit out all that is needed to be know is does the regedit window open.

After this is answered please post the answer and we will try to help you more. Just one step at a time.

I've seen this before and it was the regedit.com problem, perhaps the file is hidden? Open up My Computer, go to tools -> folder options -> View, and make sure "Show hidden files and folders" is selected. If it wasn't then go back and do a search for REGEDIT.* again on all hard disks.

Also, will other EXE files run? I've also seen a trojan that destroys the association. Try start->run PBRUSH.EXE to test.