Tweaking the Vista Registry

[MIKE MANE 60]

We have some really wonderful and useful tweaks on this forum. Slightly worrying is the fact that some newbies (and for that matter some of us who should know better) start to alter the registry without making, or knowing how to make a backup of the registry should things go wrong.

It is nice to know how to get back to our original "Working" registry when things dont go exactly to plan. I have with XP, used for some years now a lovely little registry backup and optimizer tool called "ERUNT". I am pleased to say that this also works with "Vista".

The added bonus ? It's free !! It is uncomplicated, and it works extremely well. "ERUNT" = "The Emergency Recovery Utility NT"

After installation and having chosen the "Autobackup" option, the registry is backed up daily to a folder named "ERDNT" which resides in "WINDOWS"

(for example : C:\ WINDOWS\ ERDNT\ ) It is a simple enough task to find this folder and make a shortcut available on your desktop for easy access.

Apart from daily autobackup we also have the option to make a manual backup by merely double left clicking on the "ERUNT" icon.

To re-install to a previous registry, open the "ERDNT" folder, find the named or dated folder of your choice, double left click on the green "ERDNT" Icon and you are able to re-instate to registry settings of your choice.

I also use this before every software installation and recently everytime I go onto the Internet. It is the ultimate twiddlers and tweakers safety net.

You can find ERUNT at : http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/. Or simply enter ERUNT into Google.

Hope this is of some use to many of you. Mike Mane.

[jimmsta]

I personally use ERuNT on a nearly daily basis, as I tend to do lots of spyware removal that can result in corrupt registries, and various other wacky problems. ERuNT is an invaluable tool, and I'm happy to hear that it works on Vista without any modification, as it has not been updated since October of '05.