Device Manager appears blank in Windows 7 – Resetting Registry permissions

After having a customers machine in with a blank device manager, as well as blank in network connections, we discovered it was down to a registry permissions issue.

The easiest way is to reset all registry keys to default.

To do this:
Open a run dialog by pressing Windows Key + R
Type regedit
When it opens click file (in top left corner) and click export
Save your current registry somewhere as a backup
Close regedit

Download the following from Micrsoft website – SubInACL
Windows 7 isn’t listed as compatible operating system but it will work fine with it.
Install this and select c:\windows\system32 as the installation path
Open up notepad and paste in the following
@echo off
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=system=f
@Echo =========================
@Echo Finished.
@Echo =========================
@pause

Save the above as reset.bat
For ease I have already created this file for you, which you can download here. You will have to right click on this link & click save as, else it will just display the contents of the file
Your Anti-Virus may report this as a virus because it is a bat file but if you examine the contents of it then it contains the above.
Right click on this file and click “Run as administrator”
A command prompt will then open and will run through thousands of registry entries and files, it will go back to 0 several times but this is normal
For us this process took over an hour to complete
Once done it will say “Finished”. You can then restart your computer & all should be back to normal

If you get stuck or this all seems a little too much, why not give One Touch Services a call on 01784 77 04 02? or visit our Contact us page