Why backup registry ?

One day i was surfing the net and i found a good tutorial on how to disable right click on desktop, how to hide your drives in My Computer and lot more, I was so fascinated thinking about how can i Hide my drives so i follow the tut and do as it says then I reboot my computer to see the change but to my surprise instead of hiding a drive from Explorer My computer displays a warning that some system files are corrupted and you need to reinstall your OS.

But, since I have backedup my Registry before therefore i was in a safe condition therefore it is advicable to always backup your registry before making any changes in it. You must keep in mind that all changes you made in registry are live and there is no undo option.

Warning

• Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. At the very least, you should back up any valued data on the computer before making changes to the registry.

How to Back Up Registry ?

There are actually 3 methods of backingup registry-

• Using System Restore

• By using Registry Export For a selected branch

• By using 3rd party tools

1. Using System Restore:

   This is the simplest method of backing up registry, You don't have to install any 3rd party software for backing up regedit follow the underlined procedure-

   • First, go to Start => all Programs => Accessories => System Tools => System Restore
   • Check restore my computer at an earlier time option and click next
   • Give a restore point name
   Now you had backuped your registry, now try out all the hacks and tweaks freely without any worry. Remember,you need to first reboot your computer before trying any registry hacks.

2. By using Registry Export For a selected branch

   This method is used when you're making changes to a specific key of the registry. To backup a selected key in the registry follow the underlined steps-

   • Press Win+R to open Run dialog box
   • Type regedit, and then click OK
   • Navigate to the key that you want to edit
   • Right click on the Key and click Export.
   • In the Export Registry box, enter the name of your registration file and click save
   Now, you have backuped your registry for that particular key, you can now edit the key as you want and if something goes wrong, just double click on your saved registration file (having extension .reg) and in the confirmation box click ok.
3. By using 3rd party tools

Alternatively you can use some Third party tools to back up your registry. There are a lot of registry backingup tools availaible but i would prefer ERUNT. It is really a simple tool to use.

For Vista user's Follow this Microsoft website link to learn how to backuo regedit.