Windows Vista in a Nutshell

Backing Up the Registry

Given that the Registry is an essential component of Windows, and a damaged Registry can make Windows totally inaccessible, a good backup of the Registry is one of the most important safeguards you can employ.

Windows Vista does not come with a distinct mechanism that automatically backs up the Registry, which means you’ll have to implement one of your own to fully safeguard your Windows environment.

Tip

When System Restore creates a restore point, it captures a snapshot of your Registry, so if you use a restore point, you’ll be able to return to the state of your Registry at a specific point in time. But it’s an all-or-nothing proposition; you can’t pick and choose individual Registry settings to restore.

The Registry is stored in certain files (see the preceding section, "Hives“) on your hard disk, so you can create a backup by simply copying the appropriate files to another location.

Tip

The CompletePC Backup and Restore feature of Windows Vista (Control Panel → [System and Maintenance] → Back up your computer) creates an image of your PC’s current state, including the Registry. So performing that backup is a good idea as well as backing up the Registry itself. (For details, see Chapter 11.)

When you start Windows, the information in the Registry is loaded into memory. While Windows is running, some changes may not be physically written to the Registry files until you shut down your computer; others, such as those made by the Registry Editor, are usually written ...