Editing Windows Registry (section)

== Backups and recovery ==
Different editions of Windows have supported a number of different methods to back up and restore the registry over the years, some of which are now deprecated:
* [[System Restore]] can back up the registry and restore it as long as Windows is bootable, or from the [[Windows Recovery Environment]] (starting with Windows Vista).
* [[NTBackup]] can back up the registry as part of the ''System State'' and restore it. [[Automated System Recovery]] in Windows XP can also restore the registry.
* On Windows NT, the ''Last Known Good Configuration'' option in startup menu relinks the <code>HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet</code> key, which stores hardware and device driver information.
* Windows 98 and Windows ME include command line (Scanreg.exe) and GUI (Scanregw.exe) registry checker tools to check and fix the integrity of the registry, create up to five automatic regular backups by default and restore them manually or whenever corruption is detected.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/183887/description-of-the-windows-registry-checker-tool-scanreg-exe|title=Description of the Windows Registry Checker Tool (Scanreg.exe)}}</ref> The registry checker tool backs up the registry, by default, to <code>%Windir%\Sysbckup</code> Scanreg.exe can also run from [[MS-DOS]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://support.microsoft.com/EN-US/help/184023|title = Command-Line Switches for the Registry Checker Tool}}</ref>
* The Windows 95 CD-ROM included an Emergency Recovery Utility (ERU.exe) and a Configuration Backup Tool (Cfgback.exe) to back up and restore the registry. Additionally Windows 95 backs up the registry to the files system.da0 and user.da0 on every successful boot.
* [[Windows NT 4.0]] included <code>RDISK.EXE</code>, a utility to back up and restore the entire registry.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323170|title=How To Backup, Edit, and Restore the Registry in Windows NT 4.0|website=support.microsoft.com}}</ref>
* [[Windows Resource Kit|Windows 2000 Resource Kit]] contained an unsupported pair of utilities called Regback.exe and RegRest.exe for backup and recovery of the registry.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc939136.aspx|publisher=Microsoft|title=Technical Reference to the Registry: Related Resources|access-date=2011-09-09}}</ref>
* Periodic automatic backups of the registry are now disabled by default on [[Windows 10]] May 2019 Update (version 1903). Microsoft recommends System Restore be used instead.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.extremetech.com/computing/294290-microsoft-kills-automatic-registry-backups-in-windows-10|title=Microsoft Kills Automatic Registry Backups in Windows 10 |website=ExtremeTech|date=July 2019 |access-date=2019-07-01|last1=Whitwam |first1=Ryan }}</ref>