Registry queries x3

Hi good people

three quick queries about the registry

first, REGEDIT vs. REGEDIT4 - what's the difference, please?

second, the use of double quotes in the string values. I find several various formats used, mainly
"path\program" "%1 "
"path\program %1 "
" "path\program" %1 "
is it safe to assume that the first of these is the most general fomat - or to put it another way, what could one ever gain by not putting quotes around the parameter, frinst...

third and really basic. I often see warnings advising to back up the registry before monkeying with it, and very sensible they are too.
but there seem to be two distinct ways of doing this which Windows provides, both referred to as "backing up the registry" and none of the warnings I've seen say which to use...
1 can start regedit and export everything to a file whatever.reg, using a normal windows save box which kicks off pointing at the MyDocuments folder;
2 can use registry checker method, which seems to produce the file rb005.cab in \windows\sysbckup.
I'm starting to think that 2 above is the preferred method, as wouldn't that be the one you would need if it all had gone horribly wrong...

any thoughts / clarification much appreciated!

Best Wishes to all, Hugh.

 

Hugh,

As far as I can advise .... with two AMD Thunderbirds and
a lot of HDD space ..

- regedit is a program (.exe file) that you can use to edit the registry
- regedit4 is a .reg file, if you right click it and chose "Merge "
the contents of it will be added to the registry
a - sign before the key will remove the key from the registry
a regedit4 file is not checked for correctness - so you can add any garbage you like or do not like to the reg

Saving the registry ..
I have said this x times before on many different boards ...
Do not depend solely on Windows registry backup offerings.
They assume that you can boot to a working Windows OS
If a registry fault prevents Windows from starting - what do you
do next ?

I have three levels of saving my system - most of them are automated

- ability to pure DOS save and restore the system files to HDD via floppy. LFN are taken care of.
- Drive/Folder saves via LAN to my Backup PC
- Drive Image saves to 4 removable HDDs mountable in a rack
- two of them not in the house - in case of fire/earth quake

Well, you cannot be more careful/paranoid than that !

If you want some more info on any of the above - just post.
regards

 

Hi merlin and all

re: #1: REGEDIT & REGEDIT4: sorry I didn't put the question very well. Yup, I know that regedit.exe is the program, and the *.reg files which start with a line with REGEDIT4 on it will get merged in...

then I discovered a .reg file which starts with a line with the word REGEDIT on it, not REGEDIT4 - for all the world it looks as if it's meant to do the same sort of thing - it's actually the registry entries for Adobe Photoshop (old version 4.0)...

so I wondered whether the different first line caused a slightly different merge to be performed? perhaps seeing if a similar entry's there already, overwrite it or not? as a shot in the dark...

re: #3: what I was trying to check on was which of the windows-type registry backups could be used if for the most fundamental restore - if you cannot even launch the GUI - the sort of thing I hope I won't be having to do in a hurry

it seems to be the rb00?.cab style, thus made using the registry checker approach

rather what I was trying to check up on here; there's a command line option to restore
>SCANREG /RESTORE
which would be accessible (using a startup floppy if need be) - even if the GUI won't start - I was trying to confirm which the correct backup option was in order to use this restore method...

There's also a "/FIX" option, don't know what that one does yet.

I think this is probably correct as I have now found scanreg.ini, and what it contains would seem to agree with the above. But would appreciate confirmation / or someone telling me that I'm all along the wrong lines - preferably before I have to use it! I wonder if all the people who put the standard "always back up the registry first" caveat realise how much confusion it can cause - when you know there's two fundamentally separate ways of doing it, which produce different results, but don't get told which one to use?

[at least it forced me to check up a bit though]

[merlin - you are very right to keep a multi-stringed bow regarding the backups - this is not paranoia it is good commonsense. Diversify if possible!]

still working on #2 - to me it looks as though "commandstring" "parameter" should be correct in all cases. I can't see why not?...

but the " "commandstring" parameter" style entries have been placed these by windows install or IE upgrade, not some tacky third party software or whatever, so I think the difference has to be intentional. Ummm?

Best Wishes, as ever, Hugh.

 

Hugh,
I think you are just about solving the questions you posted.
I would still suggest you invest in a racked removable HDD,
and Drive Image SW (two floppies) to save/restore the whole
drive/s to and from it.
It takes about 16 minutes to dump the whole of my 4 giga in-use C: drive to a racked disk. The 20 giga racked disks have thus
space for dumps over the last 5 days, or when you want to save. From the saved Image you can select which files/folders you wish to restore - or completely restore the original saved disk.
regards