How To Back Up And Restore Your Registry In Windows 98

[muckshifter]

Before you get started, I recommend that you print this article and keep it near at hand.

When you first saw the title of this article you may have been mildly curious, but you may not realize just how important the ability to backup the Registry can be. I see numerous posts in help forums desperate for a solution to what seems like insurmountable problems, which could easily be completely repaired by restoring the Registry.

But there is one more important use for this skill; Have you ever installed a program only to find that the installation routine has either gone terribly wrong or has made unexpected and unwanted changes and even uninstalling the program doesn't set it right? This is just the sort of "damage" that can be instantly undone with a simple Registry restoration. The beauty of it is that it's dead simple to do.

This information will guide you through the steps required to backup and restore your Registry. I will go a step further here though; I will show you how to increase the number of back up copies of your Registry as well as provide you with a small, simple and extremely powerful program which allows you much greater control over how you manipulate these backup files.

The Standard Set Up:
By default, Windows 98 will make a backup of your Registry just once daily, but only if you reboot during that calendar day. The standard setting keeps a backup for each of the previous five days only -- a rather limited number if you ever get into trouble. Also, if you don't reboot for an entire day, Windows will not create a backup. And it doesn't matter how often you reboot, only one backup will be generated per day. This is critical because you may, through program installations or direct manipulation, make significant changes to the Registry during the course of your computing sessions on any given day. If you wanted to restore a version of the Registry from a point after you had made changes during the day you would be unable to do so unless you have more backup copies at your disposal. Remember though, each new backup will replace the oldest one archived by Windows 98.

Improving The Standard Set Up:
I recommend that you make more immediate copies of your Registry on an as needed basis. Make a backup copy just before beginning an editing session or installing any program, even small ones, which modify the Registry. That way, should the results of your edits have undesired effects or if you make an error, you can simply restore the copy from a few minutes before, even if your machine has been rendered unbootable by your edits or installation. Presto - you're back in business. That it is remarkably easy to do this should serve to encourage you to be diligent in backing up your Registry. We will also show you how to make more than five copies of your Registry a little later on in this article. For now though, let's start with the fundamentals.

To Backup Your Registry In Windows 98:
Click Start/Run, type SCANREGW and click OK. This, will launch Windows' Registry scanner and backup utility. Once complete you will see a Registry Scan Results dialog box informing you of the results of the scan (it will tell you whether there were errors or not) and asking if you'd like to create a backup. Click the Yes button and Scanreg will replace your oldest backup with a current copy of the Registry. That's it. It's that easy.

If you read no further than this you'll have learned how to backup your Registry when you want, rather than relying on Windows' single daily back up. But I have much more good information here for you, so read on!

To Restore Your Registry:
In order to restore one of your copies of the Registry you must boot into DOS. There are three basic ways to boot into pure DOS. If you are in Windows you can go to Start/Shut Down... and select Restart in MS-DOS mode. The computer will restart in pure DOS (not a DOS box in Windows - very important distinction). Alternately, if your computer is already off, you can start it into pure DOS by holding down the Ctrl key or “F8” as soon as the BIOS information clears the screen. As soon as the menu appears, press the Space Bar (or any other key) once. This will keep the menu active and allow you the time to read over the selections available. Choose Command Prompt Only from the menu. You will then be in Pure DOS.

If you are having trouble booting your computer, you can use your ERD (the Emergency Recovery Disk) to boot into DOS. Simply insert the disk into the floppy drive and reboot the computer. It will do all the work for you. Any of these choices will get you into pure DOS. Once there you can restore or even make another backup copy of the Registry. In order to restore any copy of the Registry, either a copy you made or one that Windows 98 itself made within the last five days, just type SCANREG/RESTORE. Using the arrow keys, select the CAB (the CABs you will see are archived copies of the Registry) you want. The CAB files are listed by date with the most recent copy at the top. Once you've restored the Registry, use the arrow keys to highlight Exit and then reboot. If you like, you can also create another backup in DOS by typing SCANREG/BACKUP. Then follow the prompt. This backup will work exactly like the one you made in Windows. There is no functional difference.

You should now be able to boot back into Windows 98 normally, just as before you edited the Registry or had a problem. Now you know how to restore those back up copies you made.

Enjoy!
Unfortunately none of this will work in Windows 95, unless you use a Special Registry Backup & Restore Upgrade Tool Kit for Windows 95.

[reboot]

Or just cut, copy, paste, save my little backups.bat and restore.bat files from this article:
http://www.pcmech.com/showdoc/13/

[muckshifter]

Thank you reboot, that is defiantly one for my archives.

[Hpro]

I mostly agree with what is written by muckshifterbut there is a but...

You forgot followings:
Windows 9X series as also WinMe will by default BACKUP your Registry everyday when the DATE changes or when the computer is switched on on a new DAY
This will as you correctly wrote make a CAB files which is placed into C:\Windows\SYSBCKUP\RB***.CAB and for a BACKED UP RESTORED Registry (the old files ) will be named RBBAD.CAB ..
Backing up Registry through DOS will have influence on the CAB files SIZE it will be about twice or more the size than backed up by Windows SCANREG.. This makes it un necessary to backing up registry immediately after a program installation because it will take at least to the end of the day that the new registry will be backed up in a CAB file and so for if your computer goes down because of a program, then RESTORING the one from the DAY before will be more than enough since the Program which just was installed and made troubles HAS NO WAY TO ENTER A ALREADY BACKED UP *.CAB file - anyway the Idea is GOOD without doubt but it could be confusing when there are two Cab files with the same Date but a differend CAB Number..

In WinME you can user SCANREG /RESTORE from the START > RUN command line will have the same effect as in Win98

Then also if someone likes to backup the REGISTRY plus USER Options then there is the FILE SCANREG.INI in C:\Windows which can be edited to the needs of the user - I don't need to explain it here because the file itself holds the full documentation already - in this file someone can change the DEFAULT SETTINGS of SCANREG.EXE and also SCANREGW.EXE

Sometimes when REGISTRY gets screwed then it is more advisable to use SCANREG /FIX instead than SCANREG /RESTORE this depends on how the registry is screwed up or say corrupted..