Restoring the registry

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rainy
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Rainy

What exactly happens when you chose to restore the registry.. do you lose
recently installed software? as if you used system restore? Any input
appreciated.. thanks Rainy
 
What exactly happens when you chose to restore the registry.. do you lose
recently installed software? as if you used system restore? Any input
appreciated.. thanks Rainy
Click to expand...

The registry is made of "hives." Several system hives, an all user hive,
and individual user hives.

System Restore monitors changes to the portions of the registry that apply
to the system. If trying to revert from a bad software install, articles
about System Restore recommend uninstalling the program if at all possible
before rolling back to a previous restore point.

Programs that restore previous registry files are usually more broad in
scope. They create backup sets of all portions of the registry. There's a
"gotcha" in many of these programs. Usually only the current user's
registry hive is backed up. Hives for other users are not always sought
out.

Also.. the current user's portion of the registry is a dynamic set of
files: loaded hives (.dat files) and active change logs. Since the
individual user hive is in use when you create restore sets, hives and
change logs may not be recorded in their entirety. Being "in use" can also
make the restoration process incomplete.

Back to your question about what would happen in regards to a program's
installation: The program's folders and files would still be on the hard
drive. However registry info about the program would no longer exist. If
the program relies on registry entries to work correctly, then the program
would need to be reinstalled before that can happen. This would happen with
System Restore or a registry backup/restore program.

Basically the difference between using system restore and a program that
can create/restore backup sets of the registry will be in the user parts of
the registry. System Restore does not monitor them. The registry backup
program would restore whatever portions of user hives it was able to
capture.
 
I've had to read through this several times to try and understand .. you are
always so thorough... and it's appreciated, but I think sometimes this is
just over my head.. I do try though.. :) I ended up chosing to restore a
backed up registry.. and did notice that some of the programs were no long
there, they were listed like they should be.. but I had to reinstall
them...so you are right on! The reason I did this was because I managed to
get a trojan from a holiday screensaver that messed up a few things.. My
computer is ok now.. but it was a mess.

Off Thread... you remember my hard drive that disappeared, well it's still
hanging in there.. that had to be 5 weeks ago.. and I am no longer getting
drive failure prompts on boot... so I don't know why it disappeared. but I
don't think it was crashing.. I am getting a healthy readout from every
program that can check my drive.. so I'm just very thankful that it is still
working ok... strange to say the least.. thanks Sharon.. Rainy
 
I've had to read through this several times to try and understand .. you are
always so thorough... and it's appreciated, but I think sometimes this is
just over my head.. I do try though.. :) I ended up chosing to restore a
backed up registry.. and did notice that some of the programs were no long
there, they were listed like they should be.. but I had to reinstall
them...so you are right on! The reason I did this was because I managed to
get a trojan from a holiday screensaver that messed up a few things.. My
computer is ok now.. but it was a mess.

Off Thread... you remember my hard drive that disappeared, well it's still
hanging in there.. that had to be 5 weeks ago.. and I am no longer getting
drive failure prompts on boot... so I don't know why it disappeared. but I
don't think it was crashing.. I am getting a healthy readout from every
program that can check my drive.. so I'm just very thankful that it is still
working ok... strange to say the least.. thanks Sharon.. Rainy
Click to expand...

The registry in XP is complex. Not an easy thing to explain thoroughly in a
few paragraphs. Or to understand in a short while. Am glad to hear that all
is well from the rogue screensaver adventure.

Also glad to hear about the hard drive. Maybe by checking it out so closely
a cable was snugged up that was loose before? Or the planets were aligned
wrongly when you were getting the failure message? ;)
 
Hi Sharon,

< inline >

Sharon said:
The registry is made of "hives." Several system hives, an all user
hive, and individual user hives.

System Restore monitors changes to the portions of the registry that
apply to the system. If trying to revert from a bad software install,
articles about System Restore recommend uninstalling the program if
at all possible before rolling back to a previous restore point.

Programs that restore previous registry files are usually more broad
in scope. They create backup sets of all portions of the registry.
There's a "gotcha" in many of these programs. Usually only the
current user's registry hive is backed up. Hives for other users are
not always sought out.

Also.. the current user's portion of the registry is a dynamic set of
files: loaded hives (.dat files) and active change logs. Since the
individual user hive is in use when you create restore sets, hives and
change logs may not be recorded in their entirety. Being "in use" can
also make the restoration process incomplete.

Back to your question about what would happen in regards to a
program's installation: The program's folders and files would still
be on the hard drive. However registry info about the program would
no longer exist. If the program relies on registry entries to work
correctly, then the program would need to be reinstalled before that
can happen. This would happen with System Restore or a registry
backup/restore program.
Click to expand...

If restoring to a point before an application was installed, it's
registry settings and any monitored files would be removed. This can
cause the application to fail to run. Another complication that can
arise is if the application relies on an .exe file to uninstall itself.
The exe file would also be removed in the restore process and cause
uninstall to fail. An even worse, in some cases cause a reinstall of the
application to fail. At this point the restore could be undone, the
application uninstalled and then restore back to the original restore
point in question. Another alternative would be to manually delete the
application files and any left over registry setting.
 
If restoring to a point before an application was installed, it's
registry settings and any monitored files would be removed. This can
cause the application to fail to run. Another complication that can
arise is if the application relies on an .exe file to uninstall itself.
The exe file would also be removed in the restore process and cause
uninstall to fail. An even worse, in some cases cause a reinstall of the
application to fail. At this point the restore could be undone, the
application uninstalled and then restore back to the original restore
point in question. Another alternative would be to manually delete the
application files and any left over registry setting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the extra info, Bert. I was a bit "offhand" when I said that the
MSKB articles recommend uninstalling before using a restore point that
predates a program's installation. This is actually something I make an
effort to do. At least for any program that is not a "stand alone." Since
those are not as common, I uninstall more often than not.
 
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