How do I backup and restore the registry?

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I've found a program that acts like system restore, but only for the registry.
It works for Windows 2000, Xp Home/Pro and possibly Server 2003.
It may or may not work for Vista, the name of the program is EruNT.
The url for the program is: http://larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
Some of the page is in German, hth.

I recomend Erunt too. It saved my life many times.

It is also possible to find the registry hives - they are saved as regular files on the hard drive, some in buried in system32/config folder, others in the user profile folder. This is messy and really only an emergency measure as its complicated and awkward but it does work.

The catch is that restoring the registry from these hives usually requires that Windows is NOT running whilst you restore them. That means you need either a dual-boot system or to boot from a CD/other removable device whilst restoring them.

Not the simplest or easiest way but it does work.

Sorry folks I just use System Mechanic and it works the treat

I don't understand where the MS backup of the Regestry, or anything else goes. If it goes on the C: drive, and the computer crashes, haven't you also lost the backup?

Well I keep reading articles about: backup, disaster recovery, duplicate system/files and I still do not understand any of it!

Hi Leo, That has always been my problem: if you back-up registry to your hard drive, if your system crashes, or if the HDD fails, you have lost your backup. Non comprehendo! Best wishes, Bob.

I have to agree with The first comment posted by Richard. I installed a program that screwed up my system, Windows would only start up to the background screen - no icons or taskbar.

I pressed Alt-Ctrl-Delete to bring up the Task Manager, clicked on File>New Task(RUN)...typed explorer.exe - but it would only open Windows Explorer. So I navigated to the backup folder for EruNT which is C:\WINDOWS\ERDNT\AutoBackup - The folders are named by dates.

So I picked one for the day before, ran the ERDNT.EXE file from within the folder. I had to restart to finish restoring from backup, problem solved.

Just a note: this program creates a item in your Startup menu called ERUNT Autobackup - backs up your database every time you restart your computer. Reminds me of the registry backup in WinME and 98.

second note: this program doesn't delete old backups. You might want to do it manually over time. I currently have 7 backups taking 182MB of space.

http://www.geocities.com/terryhollett2003/

Bob,

Ideally you'd then backup the files off your hard drive in case of a crash. Realistically though, if your hard drive does fail you'll be most likely installing Windows from scratch, thus negating the need of a Registry backup.

My 2 cents...

--Zigg

In regards Ziggie's comment: If you have a backup on a disk or other tangible media or outside of your system, if your system's HDD were to crash and you needed to reinstall your OS on a new HDD, could you do an install to the settings had on the restore point?
At the time of reinstallation, could you install the OS on TWO partitions?

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