registry question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff
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Jeff

Dear reader!

How can I see what changes to registry was made by an update. Lets say I
first export the entire registry settings from the winxp computer. Then run
some updates on the computer and export the registry to another file. Then I
use a text editor to compare those 2 files and give an overview of the
differences... Isn't there a better way of doing this????

The problem is that a .exe file is run once on the winxp computer. This .exe
file does some updates to the registry. But we don't know what changes to
registry it perform.. We would like to change to a reg file instead, and for
that we need to know the registry settings to place in the .reg which will
replace the .exe file

any suggestions?

Jeff
 
Jeff said:
Dear reader!

How can I see what changes to registry was made by an update. Lets
say I first export the entire registry settings from the winxp
computer. Then run some updates on the computer and export the
registry to another file. Then I use a text editor to compare those 2
files and give an overview of the differences... Isn't there a better
way of doing this????

The problem is that a .exe file is run once on the winxp computer.
This .exe file does some updates to the registry. But we don't know
what changes to registry it perform.. We would like to change to a
reg file instead, and for that we need to know the registry settings
to place in the .reg which will replace the .exe file

any suggestions?
Click to expand...

ZSoft Uninstaller
http://www.zsoft.dk/
 
Jeff said:
Dear reader!

How can I see what changes to registry was made by an update. Lets
say I first export the entire registry settings from the winxp
computer. Then run some updates on the computer and export the
registry to another file. Then I use a text editor to compare those 2
files and give an overview of the differences... Isn't there a better
way of doing this????
The problem is that a .exe file is run once on the winxp computer.
This .exe file does some updates to the registry. But we don't know
what changes to registry it perform.. We would like to change to a
reg file instead, and for that we need to know the registry settings
to place in the .reg which will replace the .exe file

any suggestions?

Jeff
Click to expand...

Well, there is an app called ntregmon for XP at, I think, SysInternals which
is now owned by MS. Google would also locate several sources for it.
It will collect and report registry changes, but ... the caveat is, not
ALL registry changes are a result of any installation; there are always
registry writes happening in the background for many other things, all the
time.

The thing to do is locate the log file for the update, on c:\windows, the
$... folders. In those, you'll find .inf files and .txt files that list out
the changes each update made, and from that you can infer what registry
changes were made, IFF you know the registry well enough, which I don't.

Another way would be to export the full registry before and after the
update, and then do file compares; no idea what that'll give you though; it
might be a lot of data depending on the compare prog you use.

I'm sure there probably must be programs for what you want to do, but I
can't think of any.

A few hits from Google are:
http://www.evansprogramming.com/tracker.asp
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aregmon.html
http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/313/2.html

Lots more there too.

HTH
Pop`
 
How can I see what changes to registry was made by an update. Lets
say I first export the entire registry settings from the winxp
computer. Then run some updates on the computer and export the
registry to another file. Then I use a text editor to compare
those 2 files and give an overview of the differences... Isn't
there a better way of doing this????
Click to expand...

There is a program "inCntl5" that automates just what you describe.

<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,25126,00.asp>

HTH,
John
 
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