[Saxon]

XP provides no satisfactory way to back up the Registry except through the bloated System Restore method. Here is a brilliant free utility called ERUNT which will backup your Registry each time you boot up, it comes bundled with a Registry optimisation tool called NGREGOPT, but to download the program and read more about it here is the link: -

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

[mike5532g]

Great program, been using it about a year or so. I've set mine set to backup everyday at 3 in the afternoon. (no special reason for the time.)

It has saved my bacon on the occasion that system restore doesn't work.

[Elvandil]

RDilly backs up the registry to the folder from which it is run. The registry can be restored by copying in the Recovery Console.

[mike5532g]

Originally Posted by Elvandil

RDilly backs up the registry to the folder from which it is run. The registry can be restored by copying in the Recovery Console.

Never can have too many backups I say, if this works, I may just go ahead and turn off system restore and just use Erunt and RDilly.

Thanks Elvandil

[edbro9]

Originally Posted by mike5532g

Never can have too many backups I say, if this works, I may just go ahead and turn off system restore and just use Erunt and RDilly.

Two things:
1. You don't need to run both as they do the same thing I believe.
2. A registry backup is NOT the same thing as a system restore. System Restore backs up your registry and some important system files. There might be times where a registry restore might not be the full solution to your problem.

I also use ERUNT and I have System Restore turned off. I am pretty careful about what I do and I have backup image files of my system that I can fall back on. I just want to point out that ERUNT and SysRestore are not the same things.

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by edbro9

Two things:
1. You don't need to run both as they do the same thing I believe.
2. A registry backup is NOT the same thing as a system restore. System Restore backs up your registry and some important system files. There might be times where a registry restore might not be the full solution to your problem.

I also use ERUNT and I have System Restore turned off. I am pretty careful about what I do and I have backup image files of my system that I can fall back on. I just want to point out that ERUNT and SysRestore are not the same things.

Absolutely true. They are nowhere near the same things, and there are situations, such as when many new programs have been added or settings changed, where restoring an old registry will cause a disaster, or at least the loss of access/functionality of many programs. I'd recommend never restoring the registry unless the machine fails to boot.

Partition imaging or SR are the only real system backups, and only an image is complete.

[mike5532g]

Originally Posted by edbro9

Two things:
1. You don't need to run both as they do the same thing I believe.
2. A registry backup is NOT the same thing as a system restore. System Restore backs up your registry and some important system files. There might be times where a registry restore might not be the full solution to your problem.

I also use ERUNT and I have System Restore turned off. I am pretty careful about what I do and I have backup image files of my system that I can fall back on. I just want to point out that ERUNT and SysRestore are not the same things.

Yes, I realize they are not the same, however, I like to use two different types of backups in case one doesn't work.

Erunt has in the past not worked and I had to use system restore.

System Restore has in the past not worked and I had to use Erunt.

Instead of making 2 Erunt backups, I think it more prudent to make one Erunt and one RDilly.

I could make more than one Erunt backup a day, but whatever caused the first to fail may affect the others.

Just covering all bases.

[Elvandil]

Nothing wrong with too many backups. The advantage of ERUNT, if you have Windows PE or a UBCD24Win CD, is that you need only boot with one of those CD's and run the executable ERDNT.exe from whatever directory the backup is stored in to restore the registry very easily. It's a good idea to use a folder in the root directory to store the backups so that they will be easily found when needed.

RegistryOperator is another one with cleaning, backup, and other functions. It has almost nothing missing for functionality in the unregistered version.

[mike5532g]

Hi Elvandil, just downloaded RegistryOperator and was immediately greeted with a Trojan Horse alert from Avast Antivirus.

A Trojan Horse Was Found!

Malware name: Win32:Trojano-1984 [Trj]

Malware type: Trojan Horse

I moved it to the virus chest. Are you sure that program is ok, or do you think I just had a false positive?

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by mike5532g

Hi Elvandil, just downloaded RegistryOperator and was immediately greeted with a Trojan Horse alert from Avast Antivirus.

A Trojan Horse Was Found!

Malware name: Win32:Trojano-1984 [Trj]

Malware type: Trojan Horse

I moved it to the virus chest. Are you sure that program is ok, or do you think I just had a false positive?

I get nothing with AVG. Have been using the program for a while with no apparent problems. I'll keep an eye out, however. Did it mention a specific file? If not, try unzipping the archive and scanning the folder to see if you can narrow down the alert.

[mike5532g]

I tried downloading it again and I get the same alert. Weird.

Avast says that setup.exe is the culprit.

Do know anybody else who is using Avast, maybe you could get them to download and scan the file, see what turns up.

[Elvandil]

This is all I could find on a cursory search:

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?PHP...&topic=15478.0

It seems a lot of Avast's false positives have names like "Win32:Trojano-number [Trj]".

[mike5532g]

Thanks for the link, I figured that's what it probably was, just wanted to be sure.

[Elvandil]

Thanks for mentioning this phenomenon. I will now be aware of it when someone uses that program, and I certainly don't want to deliberately recommend something harmful, so it needed investigation.