Back up your registry as well as your data

The Windows Registry is a database that stores settings and options for Windows’ operating systems. It contains information and settings for all hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software and per-user settings.

Backing up the Windows Registry isn't as important as backing up your data to include photos, music and documents, but it’s still worth the effort as restoring the Registry to a point when it was healthy could save you a lot of grief.

Windows provides two methods for backing up your Registry. I’ll provide a third.

1. System Restore: Although Windows is “supposed” to automatically create a restore point every day or so, don’t trust that to happen. 

To create your own restore point in XP, select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Select Create a restore point, click Next and follow the wizard. In Vista, click Start, right-click Computer and select Properties. Click the System protection link, then the Create button.

In either Windows version, you can restore by selecting Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore and follow the prompts.

Unfortunately no single restore point contains a complete backup and if one is corrupted can make all the following restore points unusable.

2. Regedit: To use Windows’ Registry editor to backup your Registry, click Start, Run (Start in Vista), type regedit, and press ENTER. To make a backup, select File, Export. For the “Export range,” select All and Export. This creates a .reg file.

To restore it double-click it and confirm you want to change the Registry.

But Regedit also has problems. Restoring the entire Registry from this backup doesn't always work. And even when it does, it’ll not delete new keys created since your previous backup.

My recommendation is ERUNT a free Emergency Recovery Utility for XP and now Vista.

However there’s a trick to using it to backup Vista’s Registry. Rather than double-clicking the shortcut as you would with XP, right-click the shortcut and select “Run as administrator”. 

Each ERUNT backup consists of a dated folder containing several files. One of which is ERDNT.EXE. Click it to restore the Registry.

When used with XP, ERUNT will automatically backup your Registry daily. With Vista you must initiate the backup although “A Bit Beyond Novice” user can create a Vista ERUNT daily backup by using Task Scheduler.

 

I also recommend using ERUNT to back up your Registry before and after installing new software and/or making a major system upgrade.

Here’s wishing you a Good Boot.