Find and replacing in the registry

[Dave Rado]

I'm using Windows XP SP1.

I have recently changed a drive letter on my system, and rather than
uninstall and reinstall loads of apps I want to change all references in the
registry from the old path to the new one. Is there any way of doing this
without F3-ing to every individual entry and then changing the path for that
one entry manually? The Windows Registry Editor doesn't let you Find and
Replace; is there another editor that does?

One idea I had was to do a full registry back up, then do the Find and
Replace in WordPad on the resulting Reg file, and then run the Reg file to
apply the changes: would that work? Is there a better way?

Dave

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm using Windows XP SP1.

I have recently changed a drive letter on my system, and rather than
uninstall and reinstall loads of apps I want to change all references
in the registry from the old path to the new one.

There is software which purports to seek out and find all the references
(note that they are not all in the registry), such as the freeware
COA2.EXE. In my experience, these do a less than perfect job of finding
everything. They get most of it, but fail to find some.

The most time-consuming, but best, approach, is to uninstall, then reinstall
all the apps. But it doesn't hurt if you want to try something like COA2
first to see how it works for you.

 

[Dave Rado]

Thanks, Ken

While I was looking for COA2 (which is not free) I found Application Mover
(which is free for the first ten moves), and it seems to have worked for the
apps I used it for.

Thanks again

Dave

| Dave Rado wrote:
|
| > I'm using Windows XP SP1.
| >
| > I have recently changed a drive letter on my system, and rather than
| > uninstall and reinstall loads of apps I want to change all references
| > in the registry from the old path to the new one.
|
|
| There is software which purports to seek out and find all the references
| (note that they are not all in the registry), such as the freeware
| COA2.EXE. In my experience, these do a less than perfect job of finding
| everything. They get most of it, but fail to find some.
|
| The most time-consuming, but best, approach, is to uninstall, then
reinstall
| all the apps. But it doesn't hurt if you want to try something like COA2
| first to see how it works for you.
|
| --
| Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| Please reply to the newsgroup
|
|

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks, Ken

While I was looking for COA2 (which is not free)

Sorry. It used to be free.

I found Application
Mover (which is free for the first ten moves), and it seems to have
worked for the apps I used it for.

Glad to hear it worked for you.

Thanks again

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[Guest]

There is a program called JV16 Power Tools that does a good job of registry
search and replace as well as many other things. you can find it at
http://www.macecraft.com/

I think you can get a 30-day trial of this program.