Registry Backup

[Wayne Wengert]

I want to backup the entire registry on a WinXP box. Looking at the
instructions in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422/ they don't match the
Backup Wizard on my machine? When I click on "Backup" from System Tools it
starts a wizard but there is no "Advanced" option and it looks like it is
going to try to backup my entire system. I just want to backup the registry.
How do I do that?

Wayne

 

[Alan C]

best way to backup the entire registry is to run 'regedit' from a command
prompt, then click 'file - export'. This will create a file that can be
backed up by whatever utility you use.

 

[Kerry Brown]

best way to backup the entire registry is to run 'regedit' from a
command prompt, then click 'file - export'. This will create a file
that can be backed up by whatever utility you use.

Export from regedit doesn't backup all the hives. You need a 3rd party
application or use ntbackup and backup the system state. NTBackup works but
is awkward to restore. I recommend the 3rd party route. Erunt works great.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/index.htm

Kerry

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Get both of these...

NTREGOPT NT Registry Optimizer
ERUNT The Emergency Recovery Utility NT
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Direct download links (the zip files just need unzipping and dropping on the
drive. {Thank you, Jim}
http://aumha.org/downloads/erunt.zip

http://aumha.org/downloads/ntregopt.zip

ERUNT [[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.]]
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt

NTREGOPT [[Similar to Windows 9x/Me, the registry files in an NT-based
system can become fragmented over time, occupying more space on your hard
disk than necessary and decreasing overall performance. You should
use the NTREGOPT utility regularly, but especially after installing
or uninstalling a program, to minimize the size of the registry files
and optimize registry access.

The program works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch",
thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously
modified or deleted keys.

Note that the program does NOT change the contents of the registry in
any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive
(as the PageDefrag program from SysInternals does). The optimization
done by NTREGOPT is simply compacting the registry hives to the
minimum size possible.]]
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/ntregopt.txt

Installing & Using ERUNT
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_eruntuse.html

To see an illustrated registry restore procedure
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_erdntuse.html

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I want to backup the entire registry on a WinXP box. Looking at the
instructions in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422/ they don't
match the Backup Wizard on my machine? When I click on "Backup" from
System Tools it starts a wizard but there is no "Advanced" option and
it looks like it is going to try to backup my entire system. I just
want to backup the registry. How do I do that?

The free third-party tool ERUNT is an excellent way to do this.