Tap F8 while the computer is booting, then do the following:
Replace Software Hive
1. Go ahead and select Repair Your Computer.
2. You will likely get a screen asking you to pick a keyboard layout. Go ahead and click Next.
3. Sign in with your username and password if prompted.
4. You will then get a System Recovery Options screen.
5. Click the Command Prompt link.
6. We need to find out what the drive letter is of your main drive. In the recovery environment sometimes it changes. Type notepad and hit enter. Notepad will open. Click the File menu and choose open. Open up Computer.
7. You will see the various driver letters such as Boot (X:), System Reserved (C:), Local Disk (D:) and possibly others. Look for the drive letter that represents your Local Disk. In my case it was D. Yours may be different. Then cancel out of this screen and close notepad.
8. Type the following replacing the C with whatever drive letter you identified as your local disk.
ren C:\Windows\System32\Config\Software Software.old
9. Now type the following replacing the C with whatever drive letter you identified as your local disk.
copy C:\users\<username>\desktop\software c:\windows\system32\config\Software
10. Type exit and hit enter.
11. Click the Restart button.
Let me know if you were able to do this successfully or if anything is unclear.