XP Pro Registry Queries!

[Guest]

Hello,
Am using XP Pro with SP2. Would like to know a few things.

1. Where exactly are the System registry files located?
2. Like other windows does XP keep a certain number of system registry
files? Creating better ones & deleting the older ones?
3. How can one make a complete back up of system registry & its advantages?
4. Supposing if for some reason a back up registry has to be restored, what
exactly would be the method, simple & step wise.

Regards!

 

[Brian A.]

Description of the Microsoft Windows registry
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;256986

For more reg info, select your app, type in registry and click the arrow in
lower right.
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Guest]

Hi,
Supposing if the system registry does get corrupted for various reasons,
wouldn’t it be better to restore image using Ghost 2003(which takes not more
than 10 mins) OR trying to restore a back up of the corrupted/ damaged
registry?
Regards!

--
I apologize about my command on English, am a newbie & it is my first
experience in a newsgroup!

Ivanov

 

[Brian A.]

No matter which way anyone looks at it, an image is better. XP Restore
can be used to roll back prior to a bad app install amongst other things,
but in no way can it return your machine to the capacity that an image
does. IMHO XP's restore is simply a glorified backup without much glory.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Guest]

Hello Mr. Brian,

I am extremely grateful for sharing your personal, practical, confident &
bold thoughts.

I agree totally with you regarding Restore point service, which is one of
the reasons that I always disable the service, keep making an image of my OS
after almost every application installed.

At the moment I have approx 10 images of my OS created at different stages,
after a fresh install.

& thanks once gain for taking out the time for sharing your personal
experiences rather than suggesting some links, for my†Back Ground Type of
queriesâ€.

Being a med doc, it can be comparable to patient who approaches me for some
minor issue. To that can have 2 kinds of attitude, either to ask him to use
some search engine to know the cure for his ailment OR if I am confident,
having knowledge, experience, down to earth person would take the time to
help him.

Regards,

Have a great evening.

--
I apologize about my command on English, am a newbie & it is my first
experience in a newsgroup!

Ivanov

 

[ANONYMOUS]

At the moment I have approx 10 images of my OS created at different stages,
after a fresh install.

I seriously think that you need to consider whether you really need 10
different images of your Operating system. You need just one, I call
it master image, and you need regular backups for your personal data.

The master image is done when you do a clean install followed by
applications installation, and all updates that go with it. This is
stored in a safe place and every 6 to 9 months, the master image is
updated to cater for new updates etc.

hth

 

[Guest]

I totally agree with you on this point & that is the reason why I call myself
a newbie.

But the other thing where I have doubts is that Ghost 2003 doesn’t update
the master image, rather would create another master image.

Ghost 2005 does that, but it has its own pitfalls.

Regards!

--
I apologize about my command on English, am a newbie & it is my first
experience in a newsgroup!

Ivanov

 

[Brian A.]

You may want to rethink the way you image. I agree with anon that 10 is
extreme. I personally create one after any new OS install and keep it
stashed away should the need arise to use it and start afresh. From that
point on I use 2 images to alternate between, overwriting the alternate
being used before any app install. This way if an app goes haywire and
causes issues I can restore the drive to before the newly installed app. I
run Ghost no matter what once a week due to my usage of the machine and the
many changes that take place. IMHO it's always best to create the image
before something goes bang.

You may want to create a separate image for only your data but that
depends on your usage/setup. I must create a complete drive image of my
main drive because all partitions constantly change. I have the OS on C,
applications on D, data on E, downloads on F and VPC for testing on G. 1
of my other 2 drives is used for network backup images and the other is
used for easy access backup images of my main drive.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I agree totally with you regarding Restore point service, which is
one of the reasons that I always disable the service, keep making an
image of my OS after almost every application installed.

At the moment I have approx 10 images of my OS created at different
stages,
after a fresh install.

In my view, disabling System Restore is a serious mistake. It's a useful
tool, which has gotten me and many others out of trouble many times.

Don't think of System Restore Restore as a backup tool. That's not its
purpose. It doesn't backup your data, but just provides the ability to put
the operating system back to its condition at an earlier date.

If you also image your system, that's fine (although ten images is probably
significant overkill), but do that in addition to System Restore, not
instead of it. System Restore is an easy way to recover from a problem,
since it lets you get back to a previous condition on almost any recent day.
Your images won't do do that.

 

[Rock]

Hello,
Am using XP Pro with SP2. Would like to know a few things.

3. How can one make a complete back up of system registry & its advantages?
4. Supposing if for some reason a back up registry has to be restored, what
exactly would be the method, simple & step wise.

<snip>

Use Erunt to backup the registry.

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

Installing & Using ERUNT
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_eruntuse.html
http://www.winxptutor.com/regback.htm
http://www.aumha.org/downloads/erunt-setup.exe

 

[Plato]

No matter which way anyone looks at it, an image is better. XP Restore
can be used to roll back prior to a bad app install amongst other things,
but in no way can it return your machine to the capacity that an image
does. IMHO XP's restore is simply a glorified backup without much glory.

True. Restore is just a simple registry backup/restore util. Quite often
very useful however.

 

[Brian A.]

True. Restore is just a simple registry backup/restore util. Quite often
very useful however.

I agree it has its uses and have used it occasionally. However more
times than not with what I do it's not an option. When I create a mess, I
really create a mess. ~[|8o)


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375