Amend a Windows 7 system image catalog?

There is no catalog files as it is not a .WIM but a .vhd  All you should need to do is boot from the windows 7 DVD or the recovery DVD that it suggested you make and then restore from backup.

If backup restore won't work for you perhaps this video might be of assistance http://youtu.be/OT74xp7w-PY http://youtu.be/JUI2SFUpqsw

David, right after a clean Windows install I made an image, and the files generated included a catalog file (no extension).  Image restore, of course, works for this image, but does not work for an older image I saved off.  Last night I found another one, which included the catalog and the other files.  I tried to restore from it, and the Restore disk did find it and I was able to select it, but then it reported that the image was not a valid image.

So I have to give up and just do the time consuming reinstallation of all of my applications.

I did look at your link, but it seems very involved and the video is too small to read, but at full screen is too fuzzy to read.

Would that figure out the registration, etc, of the installed applications?

Found some info on line.  Looks very promising,  However I can't see how to execute it.  It seems to be built into Vista / Windows 7, but I got a CMD window and entered

imagex /?  to see what it would do and it said it is not a valid internal command.   How do I execute imagex?

imagex is part of the windows automated installation kit (WAIK)
Download The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7 from Official Microsoft Download Center - http://goo.gl/aE0SGu

OK, here is where I am.  Installed WAIK, went OK.  Installed True Image, then mounted my TI file.  That resulted in two drives:  

H:  System Reserved  64.7GB free of 99.9GB
I:  Local Disk               636GB free of 698GB

I looked at I:, and sure enough all my applications are found on the two Programs folders.

Logically these are just drives.  What do I do now?

I have tried running some of the programs from the image; they all fail.

I thought you said it was a Windows System Image Backup and not an Acronis True Image Backup?

It is Windows.  But I used TI to mount it.  Is there a way to mount it from within Windows?

OK, tried to open it with WAIK.  It reported "no images with read/write privileges" type of message, even with an image I made yesterday.

David, I found that TI accomodates reimaging with Windows-made VHD files.  The MBR is separately selectable.  To test it I reimaged my current Windows backup with no problem.  Then I did the same with the older one that I want to use.  It "recovered" in about two seconds, so clearly did not really restore.  I reimaged with the good file, including the MBR, then went back to the older one and reimaged without the MBR (my theory was that the good MBR would work, that all I needed was to add the OS sector), with the same two second result.  So I have to conclude that that file is just plain bad.

Thanks for the education regarding TAIK.  I'm sure if my image file were OK it would work, so I will accept it as the solution.  Thanks for your patience.  You mentioned you use TAIK as a better, safer backup method that relies upon files, not bit for bit images; could you point me to some where that would give me a step by step process for doing that?