Current Version: 1.2
RegBackup is a quick n’ dirty app I wrote to back up all registry hives including user registry hives for each user account.
NOTE this utility is already included in D7 v7.7.74+
WHY NOT ERUNT? RegBackup uses Volume Shadow Copy for backing up the registry, which unlike ERUNT that uses the RegSaveKey API, is a safer alternative at getting uncorrupted backups and is recommended as the only backup method by Microsoft since Windows XP. While ERUNT still works most of the time, it isn’t always successful at grabbing user registry hives, and corruption in the backup hives can occur, (it’s happened to me) leaving you with a worthless backup.
REPAIR: (New in v1.1) If a problem is detected with the Volume Shadow Copy Service, RegBackup will attempt to repair it prior to performing the backup.
BACKUP: Simply execute RegBackup.exe! Backups are done without prompting so the app can be scheduled via Windows Task Scheduler. There are no command line parameters necessary. Only a simple status window is displayed indicating what phase of the backup is taking place. No prompt is displayed when the backup is completed, it merely exits silently.
Registry hives are backed up to the SupportRegBackups directory, in a subdirectory named with the date/time of backup. All user registry hives will be in a subdirectory of that, named with the user account directory name.
RESTORE: Along with backup, there is some restore functionality, depending on how you plan to restore a backup.
- Restore from a WinPE/RE boot disk, or by slaving the hard drive to a working system:
- Simply run SupportRegBackupsRegRestore.exe
- Select the backup you wish to restore from the list.
- Optionally you can select to restore either or both: core hives (everything in %windir%system32config) and/or user hives (each user’s ntuser.dat and usrclass.dat)
- Click the Restore button. Existing registry hives will be renamed to <hivename>.RegBak and the backup hives copied to their respective locations.
- Restore from Windows XP Recovery Console:
- Boot to recovery console and login, where you will be in the Windows directory.
- Type two lines: (they are not case sensitive)
- set AllowAllPaths = True
- batch RegRestore
- That’s it! You will see a number of 1 file(s) copied. messages and be returned to the command prompt, from there type EXIT to reboot.
PORTABILITY: RegBackup is fully portable and needs no installation. It will extract needed files (see credits below) to a subdirectory of it’s application path named “vsstools” upon execution.
LICENSE: RegBackup is FREE for all personal and commercial use. Just know that it comes with no guarantees or warranties of any kind.
CREDITS: This tool was made possible by the VSCSC app/project available on Sourceforge, which is designed to create temporary VSS snapshots in order to copy in-use files. The VSCSC project is an open source port of vshadow.exe from Microsoft, designed for the same purpose, but is far more feature rich and capable.
