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Back
Up the Whole Thing. A good Backup Program will
include backing up the System State, including the Registry. If it turns out that something has gone
terribly wrong with your system, you can then restore
to a previous state using the information in this Microsoft
Knowledge Base Article.
Program Your Own Backup. If you are good
at programming, you may even be able to create
your own Registry backup program using the information in
this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article.
Backup
Just the Part You Need. You can backup just a
portion of the Registry by using the Registry Editor.
To start the Registry Editor, click Start => Run and type
"regedit" without the quotes. Click OK, and the
Registry Editor will start. In the left-hand pane,
navigate to the branch of the Registry that you want to back
up. Right-click the branch, and choose Export.
Enter a name and location that you will remember, and then
click Save. To restore that branch of the Registry,
all you need to do is double-click on the file that you just
saved, and the information will automatically be put back in
the original location. When you back up in this way,
the Export Range is set to "Selected Branch" by default, but
if you change it to "All" the entire Registry will be backed
up. This is not as useful for restoring, however, as
it would overwrite more than you probably want if you
double-click it to restore in the future.
Any of these
three methods will work for backing up your Windows XP
Registry before you make changes. I regularly employ the
first method as part of a good backup and disaster recovery
plan. The third method is so quick and easy, however,
that whenever I am about to make a change or tweak to my
Registry, I export the part I am about to change - just in
case.
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