Another couple of questions, DougCuk -
1. Do you use the ERUNT GUI version (a GUI shell by Klaus Roemer for the original ERUNT by Lars Hederer), or just ERUNT? (I find ERUNT alone easy enough to use, myself.)
2. Have you ever taken a look at RegBak, which acts very much like ERUNT is most respects (nearly everything it does is identical to ERUNT or at least analogous to ERUNT)? ( Acelogix Software - Regbak )
Hello
If you visit tweaking.com you will find a thread where the owner, Shane is developing an erunt type program which picks up where XP left off.
It is in Beta stage.
I am only an average user but am anxious to see what becomes of this. He showed me a pik of the program and it looks straight forward. I am hoping experts try it before I get in trouble I can't get out of.
Peter
Greetings! I've been using this handy little util for a number of yrs and found it indispensable. Recently, I rebuilt my win7pro system from scratch and eruntgui is one of the first utils I install as I reload all my software. Yesterday, due to some quirks showing up I decided to restore my registry... AND have been unable to do so. I keep getting "access denied" errors. And, yes I'm running in admin level and have ownership of the config folder and UAC is turned off. I've spent a few hrs. researching this with no joy.
TIA (thnx in advance)
Goose
Bullgoose
Which of us was your letter directed at? I am curious to know if you ever got to use Tweaking .com. I think it has supplanted the old reliable Erunt. It does the same and more and is reliable.
Restore point does the same as the rest, as you know, but is more comprehensive.
I had to dig deep for that password.
Peter
You don't really give any info as to what operation is being blocked by the "Access Denied" error.
Also it is not clear if you are running the restore using "Elevated Administrator Rights" or just using an Admin level account (which may be the cause of your problem).
I have not used ERUNTGUI only ERUNT - but I think the basic ERUNT program is still present and the backups contain the same files - but ERUNTGUI acts as a menu system to drive the ERUNT options.
If this is correct you may succeed by running the restore process directly - from the actual backup folder.
Do you know where your backup files are stored? The default would be an ERDNT folder inside the main WINDOWS folder.
The backups are normally stored in individually dated folders - and there should be an ERDNT.EXE and an ERDNT.INI file in each of the backup folders (plus the actual registry files). The basic restore option would be to right click the ERDNT.EXE file and choose "Run As Administrator" - you may get access denied for the BCD boot partition - this is normal and should not be a problem.
If the content of ERDNT.INI (view in notepad) are pointing to incorrect drive letters for some reason this could be an issue - the file can be edited - but only do so if you are sure there are errors. The INI file drives the restore file copy sequence by specifying what registry files are copied and to what locations.
I do all my backups with the basic ERUNT using the setup documented here
http://www.stargateuk.info/upload/ERUNT_Tweaks_Win7.txt
- works ok for me on Win7
I second basically all of what DougCuk has said. I use ERUNT for daily backups (keeping the backups for the latest 7 days), and, on a couple of occasions, I've used ERDNT to restore a previous day's Registry quite effectively.
The only thing I also do is to make redundant daily backups analogously using RegBak, set up much like ERUNT, just in case ERDNT couldn't do a restore for me, but I've never had to use it, since ERUNT and ERDNT have successfully saved my bacon whenever I've needed them to do so.
This is on both a desktop and a laptop, both running Win 7 Pro x64 SP1.
I mistakenly thought that Erunt no longer worked after XP.
I am running Win 8.1.
I used both RegBak and Erunt with XP and thought it was the end of it after upgrading to 7 then 8 and 8.1.
It seems VSS is quite effective in backing up the registry.
I have done ERUNT registry backups on Vista, Win7 and win8 - and restores on the first two.
I see no reason why a restore should not also work on Win8 as it is basically just Win7 with a new GUI
As stated in my previous posts you do need to use the tweaks I have compiled to make ERUNT work on Vista, Win7 (and Win8) - documented here: http://www.stargateuk.info/upload/ERUNT_Tweaks_Win7.txt
However it should be noted that ERUNT uses Registry API calls to backup the registry files and Microsoft state that this can cause problems if you have open applications. I always close all applications before running a registry backup and have therefore never seen any problems.
The Registry Backup utility from Tweaking.com avoids this issue by using the Windows Volume Shadow Copy service to backup the registry files - which is the Microsoft approved method for post-XP systems.
I have done limited tests using the Tweaking.com Registry Backup utility - so far only in manual (non-automated) mode - and it works well. It is more sophisticated than ERUNT as it can backup all the user accounts and not just those that are open. Tweaking.com Registry Backup
One issue that you need to be cautious about is restoring the COMPONENTS registry file (only present on post-XP Windows versions) as it can cause serious conflicts with the SxS Component Store (In simple terms the hidden multiple DLL version archive) see my question and the responses posted in this link
Restoring a Backup of the COMPONENTS Hive - What are the issues? - Sysnative Forums
I also posted about this issue on the Tweaking .com forum - with limited feedback from the author
Tweaking.com Forum Post
ERUNT only includes the COMPONENTS registry file in the backup if it was open (loaded in memory) at the time the backup was taken. This occurs whenever the Windows Update Service checks for updates and the COMPONENTS registry remains open until Windows gets around to unloading it.
In the version I tested the Tweaking.com utility always included the COMPONENTS registry. I have not yet checked to see what if any controls exist in the latest version regarding the inclusion or exclusion of the COMPONENTS registry.
Restoring an earlier version of the COMPONENTS registry onto a Windows system that has more recent SxS Component Store updates results in a mismatch that can break the Windows Update system and/or any recently installed applications that added updates to the SxS archive.
The best advise appears to be to keep the SxS Component Store and the COMPONENTS registry as a matched pair and restore the rest of the registry - only restore the COMPONENTS registry if absolutely required. You may then have to run complex repairs on the Component Store to fix the mismatched data before Windows Update will function again. Only Windows System Restore can revert you cleanly to an earlier matched pair of the Components system.
Your article was a good clarification re: RegBak and Erunt. Thank you for the information.
Regardless of what method I use I think t is always wise to create a restore point which you pointed out.
I am not techy enough to wander into Erunt since the XP days so rely solely upon my restore pints and my images of course. Without Macrium I would have been toast many times over.
DougCuk, I've waded through the forum links you've provided regarding COMPONENTS, and it does seem as if COMPONENTS is only semi-documented and/or semi-understood.
The big question I have is -- Should a backup that included the COMPONENTS hive be better or worse than one that did not include the COMPONENTS hive?
I have noticed that, with both ERUNT and RegBak, in Windows 7, if a backup is made shortly after booting up, the backup will likely include the COMPONENTS hive, while if a backup is made, say, an hour or two later, the COMPONENTS hive will generally be missing from the backup. [I do recognize that this statement may not always be true.]
So, would a restore of a backup made shortly after booting (including COMPONENTS) be better than, or worse than, a restore of a backup made later on (which does not include COMPONENTS)? Thoughts?
"Inquiring minds want to know..."
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