• Registry backups: Yea or nay?

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    Fred Langa
    AskWoody MVP
    March 28, 2022 at 2:43 am #2434680

    LANGALIST By Fred Langa Windows has had the ability to separately back up and restore its Registry — the essential internal database of software setti
    [See the full post at: Registry backups: Yea or nay?]

    3 users thanked author for this post.
    fotafm, Lars220, lmacri
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    • Intrepid
      AskWoody Plus
      March 28, 2022 at 10:44 am #2434792

      Here is a free Registry Backup Utility that automatically backs up the registry properly using Windows VSS.  You can easily restore the registry outside Windows from a command prompt! Just boot a Windows Recovery Drive or any Windows 10 Media.  After booting the Win10 media, just select Repair Your Computer, Troubleshoot, and then Command Prompt.  Once the command prompt is open simply browse to the backup of your choice (in separate folders named by date) and run: dos_restore.cmd
      For example:  C:\REGISTRY BACKUP\REGBACKUP\Desktop-1234\3.28.2022_3.50.03-AM

      Get it here: https://www.tweaking.com/content/page/registry_backup.html

      2 users thanked author for this post.
      doriel, SueW
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    • doriel
      AskWoody Lounger
      March 30, 2022 at 6:46 am #2435351

      Registry backup is useful when experimenting and troubleshooting, but I really never used registry backup more than few times in two decades. Its somehow usefull to backup one certain branch of registry, when changing few values, to remember, what original values were. I never used whole registry backup for restoring those values.

      Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

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      SueW
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    • Lars220
      AskWoody Plus
      March 31, 2022 at 7:25 pm #2435776

      Concerning Registry backups, great information from Fred Langa who wrote:

      “I don’t bother making separate Registry backups anymore and haven’t done so for years.” – And – “I have my full, daily, system-wide backups available anyway, which (obviously) include the full, working Registry. If I hose my PC so badly that it won’t start, I’ll simply restore that day’s earlier full backup.”

      Lets not forget that March 31st is World Backup Day,
      https://www.lifewire.com/world-backup-day-2617949
      So, to Honor this fabulous day, I offer this ancient wisdom that is still true today, chapter and verse:

      Blessed-Backups

      Amazing Truths Revealed: Link to Simply Magnificent AskWoody Knowledge Bases
      1 user thanked author for this post.
      wavy
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    • Paul T
      AskWoody MVP
      April 1, 2022 at 12:57 am #2435816

      You don’t need to be a pessimist to know that one day something will crash / die and that your valuable data will then be lost.

      cheers, Paul

      1 user thanked author for this post.
      windbg
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    • fotafm
      AskWoody Plus
      May 10, 2022 at 2:21 am #2445462

      Fred, I enjoyed your article.  It made me think about situations I have encountered in 30+ years of computer troubleshooting and repair.  Since the dark ages of Windows (98?), windows has created backups of the registry files automatically.  In an effort to save disk space(?) Windows stopped automatically backing up the system registry.  The backups were stored in the RegBack folder.  If you browse to the \Windows\System32\config\RegBack folder in Windows Explorer, you will find that since Windows 10, version 1803, each file is 0 kb in size.

      The automatic registry backup behavior can be re-enabled.  Configure the following registry entry, and then restart the computer:

      • Path: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager\EnablePeriodicBackup
      • Type: REG_DWORD
      • Value: 1

      Windows backs up the registry to the RegBack folder when the computer restarts, and creates a RegIdleBackup task to manage subsequent backups. Windows stores the task information in the Scheduled Task Library, in the Microsoft\Windows\Registry folder.

      Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/system-registry-no-backed-up-regback-folder

      In the past, I have restored a corrupt system that Windows could not repair automatically by locating the backups of the Components, SAM, Security, Software, System, and NTUser files; changing the file extensions from .bak or .old, and replacing the current versions with the backups.

      Respectfully,

      fotafm

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      wavy
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