Many times in our tips of the day we suggest changes to your Windows registry. There is always an innate risk to editing the registry, especially if you’re unsure what you are doing. A corrupt registry can cause your computer to do all kinds of unpleasant things. You can make editing the registry safer by exporting it first.

If you want to edit a value using RegEdit, the safest thing to do is save the key before you make changes. Let’s say that you’re going to make a change in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows NT | CurrentVersion | Winlogon

Before you make the change, click the Winlogon key and choose Registry, Export Registry File. Give the file a name you can remember (say, “Winlog”) and click Save.

With this key saved, you can later double-click the REG file to restore the original Registry settings.