[camacozie]

This maybe idiotic, but forgive my ignorance. Lets say I have all my software installed on the D Drive, and I want to wipe my C Drive clean. Is it possible to export a copy of the registry to another drive, wipe away C, reinstall windows, then import the resistry file back into the registry and all my programs will still work, provided I dont mess with the D Dirve where my programs were origanally installed?
Thanks for any info regarding this message.

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I think you can save a copy of your registry with winpatrol, downloadable from this site. I aren't 100% though.

[woody1977]

I think you can save a copy of your registry with winpatrol, downloadable from this site. I aren't 100% though.

[Mr.KnowItAll]

emmmmm.... interesting.
but as far as i know, when installing n app several DLL files r being installed on your system (like in windows\system32), when reinstalling win all those DLL's will b missing so u wont b able to open the app.
how ever, app that does not install DLL in win (like eMule, Bittorrent) will still run regardless of registry.

anyway... keep us posted about the result
GL

[starjax]

well it depends on if the install was to "system" or just to you, the user. Most of the time they install to the system. meaning everyone will see that application. If thats the case you can open regedit and highlight the hklocal_machine and then do an export of that entire key.

if you want to backup hk_users or hk_current_user you can as well.

Honestly I have a lot of apps installed on my d drive. I never worry about the registry entries. I just reinstall to set them up correctly. Most apps will maintain thier settings.

keep in mind that some software requires dll's to be registered. some apps have a lot. while you can regsrv32 each dll, you don't want to spend all of your time doing that.

on the other some apps store thier settings in the registry and thats what your concerned about then do the step above, reinstall your app, then import the reg key.