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Editing W2000 Registry.

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by mcastria

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Hi to alls!
I need to modify a registry with bad entries.
The first thing I've imagined to do was to edit it with Microsoft WordPad. Obviously, when I've tried to import the modified registry it wasn't recognized.
The questions are: Does any bodyknow the best way to do this?
Where can I find more information about registry editing and modification?
Thanks in advance.

5 replies

by curlergirl

The first thing is that you need to know what you're doing when you edit the registry. It isn't very hard to corrupt it to the point where your system will not longer boot. The best tool to use is the Windows registry editor, accessed by running regedt32 from Start/Run. This allows you full access to the registry and, provided that you are logged on as a local administrator, you can edit it freely. Again, you need to be very sure that you know exactly what you're doing so that you don't endup with an unbootable system. Before you change anything, you definitely want to back it up. You can do this by using the Win2K Backup tool (Accessories/System Tools/Backup), select the "System State" and back it up to a tape or file on the local hard drive. Also, update your Emergency Repair Disk at this time, which can be used to restore the essential registry information if your system becomes unbootable. There are a number of books on the Win2K registry - Mark Minasi's Mastering the Windows 2000 Registry (part of his Windows 2000 Resource Kit) might be a place to start. Hope this helps!

by joseph moore

If you are trying to make a piece of the Registry from scratch, use Notepad. You need a plain text editor to do this to avoid any formatting characters from word processing programs (like Wordpad) from slipping in.
Next, you have to make sure you don't have any extra spaces or carriage return/line feed characters in the file. One extra character can make the entire import fail.
The best way is to open the Registry on a machine you want to modify and export the Registry piece you want to change.
Then, using Notepad, make the changes to this REG file you exported.
Then, import this modified REG file. That way, you are fairly certain to have the right number of spaces and such.
Lastly, I believe that if you have to use the same file on Win2K AND NT4 machines, you need to build the file to conform to NT4 Registry specifications, i.e. the header of the file is REGEDIT4.
The header of a Win2K REG file is: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
That REG file header will NOT work on NT4 machines.

And I agree with the previous answer. Make a backup before you start importing stuff, and be careful!

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