Restoring only ONE key from a FULL registry backup?

[Blue Max]

We have a FULL backup of our Windows XP registry, but only need to restore
certain keys from that exported backup (i.e., versus the whole registry).
Is there anyway to perform this operation?

HISTORY: We had to rebuild a corrupt system. In the process we lost all
system settings, but did have a recent backup of the registry. Certain
applications had specific data saved in the registry which we need to
recover. Amongst them was the need to recover a Microsoft Outlook key for
the 'Master Category List.' For obvious reasons, we cannot import that full
registry backup and overwrite our existing Windows XP registry.

Does anyone know of a utility that would allow us to 'Extract' the desired
key from our full registry backup and safely import just that desired
Outlook key into our current Windows registry? Obviously, this utility
would have use in many, many similar circumstances, but we do not see any
REGEDIT options for doing anything other than importing the entire exported
backup.

 

[46kmz5j02]

We have a FULL backup of our Windows XP registry, but only need to restore
certain keys from that exported backup (i.e., versus the whole registry).
Is there anyway to perform this operation?

HISTORY: We had to rebuild a corrupt system. In the process we lost all
system settings, but did have a recent backup of the registry. Certain
applications had specific data saved in the registry which we need to
recover. Amongst them was the need to recover a Microsoft Outlook key for
the 'Master Category List.' For obvious reasons, we cannot import that full
registry backup and overwrite our existing Windows XP registry.

Does anyone know of a utility that would allow us to 'Extract' the desired
key from our full registry backup and safely import just that desired
Outlook key into our current Windows registry? Obviously, this utility
would have use in many, many similar circumstances, but we do not see any
REGEDIT options for doing anything other than importing the entire exported
backup.

I haven' tried it myself, but this http://www.mitec.cz/wrr.htm looks
like it might do the job.

 

[Guest]

If you know what key you are looking for then you can do this:
right click on desktop -> new text document. Name it whatever (ex. outlook)
and replace the .txt on the end with .reg. Hit enter.
right click on outlook.reg -> Edit
right click on the full registry backup file -> Edit
copy the first line from the full backup file to outlook.reg (should look
like "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" without the quotes)
Press enter twice in outlook.reg
In the full backup file do a Edit -> Find and search for the key you are
looking for

For Example here is my part of my ThemeManager entry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager]
"WCreatedUser"="1"
"LoadedBefore"="1"
"ThemeActive"="1"
"LastUserLangID"="1033"

Once this is found select from the [ before the key to the blank space
before the next key (right after the "LastUserLang...")
Do an Edit -> Copy
Bring up your outlook.reg file, and make sure that the cursor is 2 lines
below the Windows Registry Editor... line
Do an Edit -> Paste
Do File -> Save

From here your file should look something like:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager]
"WCreatedUser"="1"
"LoadedBefore"="1"
"ThemeActive"="1"
"LastUserLangID"="1033"

Close your backup file and the outlook.reg file.
Double click the outlook.reg file and choose yes to add it to the Registry


This is the long and tedious way of doing this, but I don't know if there is
any software out there that can automate this process.

-Dan

 

[Guest]

wow your looking at a lot of work...possibly

You will have to navigate through the saved registry file manually with a
text editor, this is the only thing I know of.
In the future you should back up individual keys but you still have the
option of correcting/deleting whatever errors you found with your corrupt
registry (in the saved file) by editing the entire registry and loading it.

Or if you want a project try this:

using notepad (or notepad++ which would work better with this job
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=95717&package_id=102072&release_id=433916 )

SAVE your registry first!
1. load your saved .reg file.
2. Scroll to the keys you wish to load, highlight, copy and paste that into
another (blank) instance of notepad
3. repeat step 2 leaving a blank line between every key until you have a
list of all the keys you want
4. save the file to your desktop as "all files" and save the name as .REG
(ie: office.reg)
5. close all notepads and doubleclick the office.reg file, this will load it
into your registry.

keep searching out there you might find something easier...good luck

 

[Blue Max]

Thanks, I lost this message thread in a system reinstall and just found it
today. Sorry for the delayed thank you. Your help was most appreciated.

********************************

 

[Blue Max]

Thanks, I lost this message thread in a system reinstall and just found it
today. Sorry for the delayed thank you. Your help was most appreciated.

********************************

 

[Blue Max]

Thanks, I lost this message thread in a system reinstall and just found it
today. Sorry for the delayed thank you. Your help was most appreciated.

********************************

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the update and thank you Blue..but what do you mean by 'a system
reinstall'?

Do you mean from before or did you try to load corrupt registry keys and
BSOD or did you give up?

Just for next time, there is a way to load and edit the registry backup file
you had within regedit.exe without actually 'merging' it into the system
registry. If you felt comfortable editing out the bad stuff you could fix and
reload.
Hwever...
Im not going into detail about it now but you could also use this method to
retrieve your lost keys with a third party 'key extractor'. I've never done
it but I'm sure it could work somehow.

good luck!