MOSS 2007 is a very easy install, so I was puzzled to come across a strange bug when following a succesful install that appeared when trying to start the Sharepoint Help Search from Central Administration. A rather quirky file not found message was throwing odd and spurious messages into the event log - could configure registry settings etc etc.
Could not import the registry hive into the registry because it does not exist in the configuration database.
Error backing up registry hive to the configuration database. Context: Application 'Search index file on the search server
The knock on effect was that the actual Sharepoint search wouldn't start either and gave a file not found error. This incidentally led to the system being unrecoverable and needing a rebuild!
It seems the cause was the reg.exe file installed with Windows 2003 - and we had the wrong one on the server as a build script used to create the server build replaced it with an earlier version and of course MOSS has a dependency on features in the latest version that isn't checked by the installer - can't see why it would be really!
I expect a KB to appear on the back of this as MS have spent quite a bit of time helping root this out and given its a show stopper deserves a better write up than this.
However, I've seen these rather generic errors pop up on the web forums a few times with no answer so fingers crossed there might be a low wattage bulb at the end of this tunnel that helps someone out.