Okay,
Here is what happened:
We traveled to a site with 100+ computers/servers and had to gather configuration data on each (programs, ports open, services runnable, task list, hardware etc…). To accomplish this, I designed a batch file that ran various VBscripts that extracted data from WMI and the dos prompt. The problem, which was expected but could not be mitigated, resulted from trying to run this tool on older operating system. So we had to scan these few devices manually. The best way I determined, on the fly, to gather “what programs are installed” was to simply export the registry and worry about it later (i.e. now). So, all these tools I have can only extract data from the primary registry associated with a computer. But I have .txt exported registry files from a multiple pcs. How do I extract data from a backup registry with importing it into my computer and possibly destroying it?
Here is what I need to do:
Dead minimum: Extract installed software reliably from backup registry files.
Additional: Extract any other basic configuration data from the backup registry files.