Managing The Windows 2000 Registry

RegEdit Command-Line Options

Even though I’ve been talking about using RegEdit as a standard Windows application, it also supports several command-line options that let you to import and export Registry data from scripts, batch files, or the command line. Both switches run RegEdit as a background process. The export process is quiet; the import process displays a completion dialog, just as it does when you use the Registry→Import Registry File...command.

Exporting Data

You tell RegEdit to export data with the /e command-line switch. The command looks like this:

regedit  /e targetFile  [registryPath]

targetFile

This specifies where RegEdit should write its data. You can specify any path, filename, and extension so long as it’s not a UNC path.

registryPath

This optional parameter tells RegEdit what to export. If you omit it, the entire Registry is exported. If you specify a key, that key and all its subkeys are exported. The path must be a complete path, including a root key, and you must spell out the name of the root key.

If you want to dump the contents of HKLM\Software\metrowerks to a file named warrior.reg, you can do it like this:

regedit /e c:\dist\hklm\warrior.reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\metrowerks

Importing Data

The simplest way to import data using RegEdit is to specify the name of the file you want imported on the command line, like this:

regedit warrior.reg

RegEdit happily imports the file’s entire contents and presents a confirmation dialog when done. Alternatively, you ...