Re: Windows registry recovery

[Flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

Harry, et al,
> Or, my own method: just wait til it crashes and burns (about every
> 12-18 months), then do a clean re-install.
≪
Speaking of that. In re-installing XP, you have to format the disk then
reinstall all your apps right? Is this the penalty for having one large
C: drive with everything on it?≫
Yes. See now why it makes sense to keep the OS on one partition and put
the apps on another? It allows you to re-install the OS and keep the
apps (relatively) unaffected. But you must plan ahead and document what
apps you install. You must keep backups of the last clean and
functional registry, you must know (i.e., document) which apps were
registered (including service packs and updates), and you must keep the
backup reg files separate from the boot partition (which gets erased
when you re-install the OS). Further, you must ensure that the correct
backup registry is actually accessible to the re-installed OS, if
necessary before the network connections are re-established; in
practice, this means backing up the reg to the partition where the apps
are installed, and/or to CD-ROMs or USB stick. Reg edit has export and
import functions for this purpose. This is standard procedure for
corporate network disaster recovery policy, at least for servers and a
few mission critical stations, though no sys-ad would go to so much
trouble for every workstation.
Collecting the necessary apps-information in a single reg file is not
perfect, but it is an improvement over what Microsoft did before, which
was to locate the app-specific information inside each
app-installation-folder in an ini file. This meant that you had
hundreds of ini files strewn all over the hardisk. It was impossible to
backup and recover later.