specs for a registry editor

[Spacey Spade]

Does anyone know of a registry editor with the following features:

- Ability to select contiguous or non-contiguous registry keys and/or
values for backup as reg file or for creating an "uninstall" reg file.

- Ability to display all results of a search in a list. Ability to do
batch key/value string/data replacements on user selected items in this
list.

- Undo History List: one can select previously made changes to undo from
a list.

Regards, Spacey

 

[omega]

Does anyone know of a registry editor with the following features:

- Ability to select contiguous or non-contiguous registry keys and/or
values for backup as reg file or for creating an "uninstall" reg file.

- Ability to display all results of a search in a list. Ability to do
batch key/value string/data replacements on user selected items in this
list.

- Undo History List: one can select previously made changes to undo from
a list.

Not all in one suite, does not exist in freeware. You'd have to sort out some
four or five registry tools, to use together. If you don't mind that.....

 

[Spacey Spade]

Not all in one suite, does not exist in freeware. You'd have to sort out some
four or five registry tools, to use together. If you don't mind that.....

Well... I can dream can't I?

 

[omega]

Well... I can dream can't I?

My kind of dream. You know, if you don't mind, I might indulge myself in
looking at some of these tasks you list, as separate activities. I also
hope you don't mind if I break them down slowly, into small bites (avoiding
over-strain on my concentration faculties that way).

First Bite>

Do you refer to something that will watch your activities while you make
changes with your registry editor? My own habit is to just export keys
when appropriate, prior to changing or deleting them.

Another option you have, if registry editing is when you need the history
list, it's digging up PCMag's Registry Editor Plus from your archives, and
running it to do your edits.

: Every time you use the SafeEdit functions to make a change in the registry,
: R.E.P records the information needed to undo that change.
:
: The SafeEdit menu in R.E.P. contains "safe" versions of the the Modify,
: Rename, and Delete commands from REGEDIT's main menu.
:
: The History window displays these items in reverse chronological order.


If you mean another kind of circumstance? For instance, when I run a
"registry tweaker" program, I like to record the before and after state
of my keys, for each menu action in the "tweaker" program. Then I can
not only change my mind... But also, since I then have whatever "tweaks"
stored in their natural form (.reg), I can finish by tossing out those
klutzy tweaker programs. (Excepting ever discarding the fine XTEQ, class
of its own.)

For this kind of history recording, it's InstallWatch (epsilonsquared.com)
that's well suited. It takes a bit to get the configuration of this app in
line, and it's not immediate to get used to its interface, but as soon as
you get those things smoothed out, it's quite worthwhile.

Installwatch gives you the before and after of any keys you're interested
in for export to .reg files. And it has a central database for all logs
you've done, so you can go back whenever, to look up what before +- after
states of keys you later want exported. You can find those by shuffling
through the snapshots you took and named, which are displayed together in
its main window, chronologically. So this program gives you not only a
momentary registry-change history, but as well a cumulative one, to store
for however long you wish.

Requoting where this began:

Did I get anywhere near? I mean, given that we've already had to delegate
your all-in-one wish off to the land of dreams. The history list function,
do the tools/methods mentioned sound like they address this?

 

[Spacey Spade]

[snip]

First Bite>

Do you refer to something that will watch your activities while you make
changes with your registry editor? My own habit is to just export keys
when appropriate, prior to changing or deleting them.

Another option you have, if registry editing is when you need the history
list, it's digging up PCMag's Registry Editor Plus from your archives, and
running it to do your edits.

: Every time you use the SafeEdit functions to make a change in the registry,
: R.E.P records the information needed to undo that change.
:
: The SafeEdit menu in R.E.P. contains "safe" versions of the the Modify,
: Rename, and Delete commands from REGEDIT's main menu.
:
: The History window displays these items in reverse chronological order.

[snip]

I'd rather never have to "export a key out" for safety concerns... I'm
usually going mad in the registry... things flying left and right...
URGENCY!!! Ok, just kidding, but I'd rather not have to take the couple
extra steps and instead have the editor keep a list in "reverse
chronological order"... that I could look at the list and select "I
messed up on this one, this one, and that one : undo*click*". You've
taken care of the First Bite.

But I also want to be able to export just 3 values out of a list of 20,
and my win98 regedit just exports the whole key. Also (though really
minor), if there was an option to view values like Correlate displays
files, then I could select values in other branches (ctrl-clicking to my
hearts desire). But this can be done by concatenating files. Besides,
it would probably be an annoyance to see too much at once and have to
scroll and scroll. Perhaps WinXP's regedit can do this, and it works
with Registry Editor Plus? Then you would have partially taken care of:

Only needed now is to be able to export a reg file that looks like:
[-HKEY_USERS........] where you know what the minus sign in the key will
do. Can you put minus signs in front of values as well? Anyway, in
essence you would have two options for export: "install reg file", and
"uninstall reg file".

So, you can do these "multi-select"(tm) exports while navigating the
registry, and in addition, you can do the multi-select exports from a
search result list, or even from the undo list. And that would satisfy:

Which would really be a "good thing"(tm). Spacey

 

[Spacey Spade]

[snip]

If you mean another kind of circumstance? For instance, when I run a
"registry tweaker" program, I like to record the before and after state
of my keys, for each menu action in the "tweaker" program. Then I can
not only change my mind... But also, since I then have whatever "tweaks"
stored in their natural form (.reg), I can finish by tossing out those
klutzy tweaker programs. (Excepting ever discarding the fine XTEQ, class
of its own.)

Exactly... I have a collection of reg files that I go to town on when I
install an OS. "I can finish tossing out those klutzy tweaker
programs". To be honest, I took one look at XTEQ, and decided that I'd
rather be ignorant about the 3 or 4 more valuable tweaks I'd learn.
Maybe I should have taken more than one look? Sometimes, though, I kind
of feel like Microsoft's puppet.

 

[Spacey Spade]

Oops... forgot to go into this one... it is just a fancy search and
replace, where on doing a search you get a search results list, then you
can highlight items in the results and, for example, replace
c:\windows\favorites with d:\windows\favorites on all the search results
or on the items you highlighted in the search results.

 

[omega]

Re: Syntax for deletions in a .reg file

Only needed now is to be able to export a reg file that looks like:
[-HKEY_USERS........] where you know what the minus sign in the key will
do. Can you put minus signs in front of values as well?

Syntax for removing a key, as you say, it's the "-" inside the bracket.
(It's strong, an RD kind of thing, which also kills any subkeys beneath
it.)

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\UglyKey]

Syntax, for removing a value: it's using the value name, together with
setting a minus (-) for that value data. IOW, the "=" is followed by a "-".

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AnyKey]
"UglyValue"=-

It's whole keys that I delete, 98% of the time. Yet I do have some values
that I like to kill...

== DELETE VALUES ==

First example

Sometimes when online, I run a "keep alive" program. I've not devoted
time to look for the best option in this cat, so in the meantime I use
the one that's installed. It's AC-Plug, by I-Opus. These people have
decided, that despite calling their program freeware, they want to try to
use my msie-based browsers as an advertising medium for their company.
By inserting their name into my browser header, which files into webmaster
logs. I consider it my right to control how my browser-agent header reads
out, and to disallow outsiders plastering onto it their brand-name bumper
stickers.

So to keep it clean, I launch AC-Plug only from a shortcut that points to
a .bat:

------Run AC-PLUG.bat-----------------
acplug -on -tray
regedit /s kill.reg
cls
--------------------------------------

The kill.reg file abruptly wipes out their sneaky value:

-------Kill.reg------------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet
Settings\User Agent\Post Platform]
"iOpus-I-M"=-
-----------------------------------------


Second example

The free registerware programs from FreshDevices. The FD "freewares"
commit the same sneaky insertion of invalid keys into your registry as
is most common with time-out shareware. The common act: creating one or
more garbage/bogus registry keys, then using those bogus keys to store
what are usually hex values for tracking counts or date.

Even after I went through the registration routine with FreshDevices.com,
and entered the information via the interface of their programs, I found
that every launch of their programs continues to insert bogus krap.

I like to view, and try to learn from, my registry in its true and _valid_
form. I do not want the nonsensical clutter in there that serves to only
cause me confusion. So my launch of the FreshDevices programs gets followed
by a deletion of their invalid keys.

On two of their programs, I have nothing within the relevant key I need
to keep. For example, FreshDiagnose creates the following whenever it is
launched:

[HKCR\fndfile\shellex\Topic]
"Z"=hex:00,00,00,00,20,63,e2,40
"CZ"=hex:53,be,0b,01
"CY"=dword:00000001

Since I've got no valid values under that [..\Topic], I run a deletion of
the entire key.

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\fndfile\shellex\Topic]

I've the same circumstance with their FreshUI, where I can just kill the
whole key [HKCR\ShellScrap\shellex\Topic]. OTOH, FreshDownload's chosen
location for inserting garbage values: It's a key which, on my system,
also contains a value that appears as if it might be legit.

[HKCR\mhtmlfile\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic]
@="WWW_OpenURL"
"Z"=hex:00,00,00,00,a0,81,e2,40
"CZ"=hex:32,be,0b,01

So this is a case where I think I want to keep the key itself, in case it's
correctly needed, while deleting those values within it which are known to
be invalid. The .reg file then comes out this way:

------delete bogus values.reg---------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mhtmlfile\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic]
"Z"=-
"CZ"=-
----------------------------------------------

.. . . .

Value deletion examples fin, and coming back to the beginning:

Only needed now is to be able to export a reg file that looks like:
[-HKEY_USERS........] where you know what the minus sign in the key will
do. Can you put minus signs in front of values as well?

Delete Key

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\UglyKey]

Delete Value

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AnyKey]
"UglyValue"=-


Another related action in using .reg files, it would be for replacing
values.


== REPLACE VALUES ==

For example, changing the HTTP connections values. Say I'd previously had
my values at a conservative (law-abiding.good-netizen) setting, but then
later chose instead to overwrite them to something much higher. The new
value data entries after the "=" will overwrite the old:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet
Settings]
"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:00000028
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000028

The other values in the [..\Internet Settings] key in the registry, they
will be left untouched by the merge.

Another example for overwriting values. For a while I was going back and
forth between two user settings, mostly related to color schemes, for
TreePad Lite. I used a pair of .reg files to toggle between two layout
schemes. An excerpt from one of those files:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freebyte\Treepad2\Tree\Font]
"font_name"="verdana"
"font_color"=dword:00ffff00

Here, the "font_color" value data in the .reg file overwrites whatever
color setting is in place in my registry when the .reg gets merged.

.. . . .

These examples, for deleting values, and for changing values, they are
something I have need to do only a fraction of the time, compared to key
deletions.


== DELETE KEYS ==

Deleting keys is something I do constantly; and in many cases, system-
atically. For instance, to deal with the constant annoyance, committed
by far too many programs, to vainly insert their custom filetype and
association into my registry, every time I launch their executable.

It becomes even more of a problem when that program is also auto-creating
a \shellnew key under its custom extension, badly littering up my explorer
context-click "New" menu.

Systematic whole-key deletion, for cutting out that annoyance.

------Kill FileImg's krap.reg------------------------
REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.fid]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.fii]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FileImgDiff.Document]
---------------------------------------------------------

Before finishing the deletion examples talke here, I should make sure to
at least note a couple of keep-in-mind things about branch names as they
relate to .reg files.


== REGISTRY BRANCH NAMES ==

[1] HKLM, HKCR, HKU, HKCU, etc

I like this shorthand and choose it in writing most often. It is also
pretty widely functional. It can be fed to the graphical registry editors,
when you want them to load a path. It is used in .inf files for registry
manipulatons. (Also the Script Host, for .vbs & .js, it uses the
abbreviations, only excluding hw branches. I've seen around some other
contexts, additionally, where the shorthand is used, tho' those were
contexts too foreign to my experience for me to enumerate them.)

Where the shorthand does not work is in .reg files that are used to merge
to the registry. I'd slipped up about that, including recently in a post
made to acf. I gave a .reg file that was dysfunctional, because I'd not
written out the branch name. The example from that case: I'd mistakenly
written HKCU\ for a .reg, instead of the needed longer HKEY_CURRENT_USER\.
So I figure I should note here that others may also need to look out for
avoiding this type of error that I've found myself prone to.


[2] HKCU and HKCR are pretend/imaginary/virtual

Also true with the hardware related branches. This doesn't matter if
you're in Windows. Yet if you need a .reg file to get processed before
Windows has loaded, then you have to name the real, actual branches
involved. There are only two: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS.

If in Windows, it's simpler to deal with, say: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\
Instead of working from the real path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\CLASSES\

Everything seems to work fine, and more conveniently, when using the
short virtual paths, including with .reg files to merge. Just be aware.
You will need to make adjustments in any .reg which you plan to have
processed at a stage in the boot process that occurs before Windows
has loaded.


[BRANCH LAYOUT FOOTNOTE]

In my notes [1] and [2] above, I'm making somewhat elliptical reference
to the registry layout and branch names. For those not already adjusted
to what's up with the basic outline of the branches as viewed in a reg
editor, best bet is to look over one of the web pages that presents this
in a visual table layout together with brief definitions about each branch.
(google w maybe "registry structure" or architecture.) In the meantime,
below for a brief rough sketch.


[Real]

HKLM....HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
HKU.....HKEY_USERS

[Virtual; software]

HKCR....HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
= HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes
HKCU....HKEY_CURRENT_USER
= HKEY_USERS\<name>

[Virtual; devices, hardware]

HKCC....HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
= HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Config\<number>
HKDD....HKEY_DYN_DATA (dynamic, not-for-edit)

 

[omega]

essence you would have two options for export: "install reg file", and
"uninstall reg file".

You're about 5000 yards ahead of me, on the tasks to have registry tools
take care of.

The one above is of particular interest to me. But I'm very slow, so will
come back to it later on.


(And damn it -- an immediate computer task has just put itself at my
forefront. Agent is corrupting my data. Duplicable, involves switching
its launch path between two inis. Have to clean up the corruption, then
decide whether to bother trying to invest the time to inquire in its
newsgroup for knowledge of the corrupting behavior :< )

 

[Spacey Spade]

Re: Syntax for deletions in a .reg file

Thanks!
Not only did you answer my question... but you answered other people's
questions in advance!