Windows 7: Registry - Backup and Restore

The Registry worked perfectly.

You're welcome.

Something the ERUNT readme file says:
"Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for making a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of old and new entries."

Hello Injust,

I agree with that for the complete registry. That's one of the main reasons why I recommended using System Restore for the complete registry instead.

Of course, nothing can beat creating a system image.

Yup, but many members here have recommended me to export the registry instead of creating an image or using a third-part tool like ERUNT

Ooof, that's not good. Exporting parts of the registry is fine, but not the whole thing.

Hello,
How would be the command to backup a sub-key like at command prompt to use in a batch file or other simple script, please?

Hello Neophile,

You can type reg export /? in a command prompt and press Enter to get more details about it like below.



For example, if you want to export the Software registry key below, ....

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software

.... you would type this into the command prompt below to export it with any filename.reg you like. The Y switch is to copy over if that filename already exists.

REG Export "HKCU\Software" filename.reg /Y

It will export the filename.reg file to wherever you have the command prompt open to. In my screenshot below, this would into the C:\Users\Brink folder.



Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thank you Brink. I had already tried regedit /?, but this was wrong and just opened the registry editor. I had not found the correct help command. Now I tried, but it does not always work . It works when I export a full key, like

reg export HKEY_CURRENT_USER trial.reg
The operation completed successfully.

But not when I try to export a deeper subkey, and get an error as

reg export HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion trial.reg
ERROR: Invalid syntax.
Type "REG EXPORT /?" for usage.

I wonder what I am missing or if it does not actually export subkeys as I understand from the results of "reg export /?".

It would be very useful for many usages. An example is the Outlook profile for e-mail accounts settings, because it saves all accounts, passwords, etc. The usage is not limited to this, but with this I could make periodic auto-savings.

Since the key path has a space in it, you'll just need to have it wrapped in quotes like below instead.

reg export "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" trial.reg