backing up registry

[Kim Aku]

I'm scared of making any changes with regedit or regedti32
because I don't know how to back up the registry to a place
from which I can choose to restore it.

With w98SE, I can tell scanreg.ini where, and how many,
backups I need, and keep a text log of what I did before
each rb0xx.cab; and with XP I can create a named system
restore point.

What is the equivalent in W2K?

Last Good Configuration (or whatever it's called) doesn't
fit the bill because I may want to go back several days or
weeks when some unwanted result of my tinkering emerges...

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Kim - Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm I've set it up to
take a scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis,
and a Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject

This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a normal restore.) (BTW, it also includes a
Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly recommended.

FYI, quoting from the above document:

Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make
a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole
registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is
saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the current
registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is
merged with the current registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new registry keys.


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Kim - Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm I've set it up to
take a scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis,
and a Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject

This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a normal restore.) (BTW, it also includes a
Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly recommended.

FYI, quoting from the above document:

Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make
a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole
registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is
saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the current
registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is
merged with the current registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new registry keys.


--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[Mark V]

Kim Aku wrote in

I'm scared of making any changes with regedit or regedti32
because I don't know how to back up the registry to a place
from which I can choose to restore it.

With w98SE, I can tell scanreg.ini where, and how many,
backups I need, and keep a text log of what I did before
each rb0xx.cab; and with XP I can create a named system
restore point.

What is the equivalent in W2K?

Last Good Configuration (or whatever it's called) doesn't
fit the bill because I may want to go back several days or
weeks when some unwanted result of my tinkering emerges...

See tool "Jim" mentions. Easiest.

But to answer the "built-in" question. Use of "Backup"
(ntbackup.exe) to make a System State backup or
to make a ERD backup (with "Also backup..." checked) will backup
system (and maybe) user registry hive files to
%systemroot%\repair\RegBack\
You should be logged with an Administrator account.
Restoration is manual via a Recovery Console prompt and only one
level of backed up files is saved this way. Unless you manually copy
the files to an alternate location. Although the registry files do
exist within the backup in a file; on tape; on CD ...

There is nothing built-in that much resembles the W98 facility.

There is also a Resource Kit util (regback.exe) that can be
integrated into a batch solution.

 

[Mark V]

Kim Aku wrote in

I'm scared of making any changes with regedit or regedti32
because I don't know how to back up the registry to a place
from which I can choose to restore it.

With w98SE, I can tell scanreg.ini where, and how many,
backups I need, and keep a text log of what I did before
each rb0xx.cab; and with XP I can create a named system
restore point.

What is the equivalent in W2K?

Last Good Configuration (or whatever it's called) doesn't
fit the bill because I may want to go back several days or
weeks when some unwanted result of my tinkering emerges...

See tool "Jim" mentions. Easiest.

But to answer the "built-in" question. Use of "Backup"
(ntbackup.exe) to make a System State backup or
to make a ERD backup (with "Also backup..." checked) will backup
system (and maybe) user registry hive files to
%systemroot%\repair\RegBack\
You should be logged with an Administrator account.
Restoration is manual via a Recovery Console prompt and only one
level of backed up files is saved this way. Unless you manually copy
the files to an alternate location. Although the registry files do
exist within the backup in a file; on tape; on CD ...

There is nothing built-in that much resembles the W98 facility.

There is also a Resource Kit util (regback.exe) that can be
integrated into a batch solution.

 

[Kim Aku]

Thank you very much, Jim - I hope you get to see this
acknowledgement. I had given up finding my post after it had
not appeared 48 hours later - and then days later I had
another look just in case, and found your bacon-saving reply
to my original post.

Do you know if there were problems about a week ago with the
microsoft newsgroups? Sometimes I couldn't even get them to
load (I use the Internet rather than a news client), and now
they seem to be working fine.

My h*tma*l address is suitably disguised above.

 

[Kim Aku]

Thank you very much, Jim - I hope you get to see this
acknowledgement. I had given up finding my post after it had
not appeared 48 hours later - and then days later I had
another look just in case, and found your bacon-saving reply
to my original post.

Do you know if there were problems about a week ago with the
microsoft newsgroups? Sometimes I couldn't even get them to
load (I use the Internet rather than a news client), and now
they seem to be working fine.

My h*tma*l address is suitably disguised above.

 

[Jim Byrd]

YW, Kim - Yes, there were some considerable problems about then. They had
to rebuild all of the Master tables, I believe. Glad you found the
ERUNT/ERDNT useful. (BTW, if you're using an NTFS file system, and have
installed the Recovery Console, you can do a partial (system, not user)
restore in order to get back to being bootable, after which you can do a
complete restore if you need to. If you're interested in this, email me at
jrbyrd AT comcast.net [change things appropriately], and I'll provide
info on how to do this.)

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[Jim Byrd]

YW, Kim - Yes, there were some considerable problems about then. They had
to rebuild all of the Master tables, I believe. Glad you found the
ERUNT/ERDNT useful. (BTW, if you're using an NTFS file system, and have
installed the Recovery Console, you can do a partial (system, not user)
restore in order to get back to being bootable, after which you can do a
complete restore if you need to. If you're interested in this, email me at
jrbyrd AT comcast.net [change things appropriately], and I'll provide
info on how to do this.)

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In