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SMARegisTry: Backup And Restore Windows Registry Hives & Keys With A Click

Unlike Mac OS X and Linux-based operating systems, Windows includes quite a smart, yet vulnerable, database of configuration settings for user profiles, system utilities, user apps and device drivers called Registry. Windows Registry acts a central database repository for almost all applications and system utilities that are allowed to access and make changes to system-wide locations. Since malicious scripts, viruses and malwares attempt to modify Windows Registry for exploiting administrator rights to perform low-level operations, it’s highly advisable to backup critical Windows Registry hives, so that when a virus/malware modifies Windows Registry, you can restore them to prevent any irreparable Windows faults. SMARegisTry Backup is a miniscule, portable application that allows you to not only backup entire registry hives and sub keys, but also restore the backed up registry hives with a click.

The main interface is divided into 2 panes that allow you to select the Windows Registry hives, with options to view key contents, backup selected keys, restore all keys from defined folder and restore individual keys. To begin, either select a complete registry hive or expand a registry hive to select required keys. Once selected, click Add Key to List to add selected keys to Backup These Keys pane. Similarly, you can add more hives or registry keys to backup list.

When all registry keys, which you wish to backup are added to list, click Backup Keys Now. This will start backing up all the selected registry hives and keys. Optionally, it lets you save the list of selected hives and keys to backup them up later. The Load list option lets you open saved list in Backup These Keys pane to quickly backup the registry hives and keys.

SMARegisTry Backup

The times it takes to completely backup registry hives and keys depends upon the size of selected hives. Once all the selected registry keys are backed up,  a success message pops-up, showing target location of backed up registry keys.

SMARegisTry Backup 2

To restore backed up registry hives and keys, click Restore All Keys From Directory to Registry option and choose the folder where registry keys are located. On selecting the source folder, it will immediately start restoring the registry keys.

restore reg backup

Since registry keys are backed up in REG format, you can manually restore individual registry keys by simply double-clicking them. SMARegistry Backup is an open source application that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Download SMARegisTry Backup

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