Usage of virtualization software for Windows Registry exploration

This article is for those, who really want to play and explore registry to very last bit. Have you ever corrupt your windows installation, while changing stuff in registry? If you did, please read this article to the end. I'll show you some ways to prevent that, or how to do it in more fancy way.

Backup

Before you start working with registry, please back it up. Do not hurry. Perfect tool for this is Registry Tweaker. You can easily backup whole registry, individual hives or keys. What to choose you might ask? It’s simple, if you are changing values in the same key, than it is ok, to backup only that key. It is way faster to backup one key, than to backup whole registry, especially if you have large registry or slow PC. On my PC it takes about 10 seconds to backup whole registry, resulting ~80 MB file. Anyway, I recommend you to backup whole thing, who knows; maybe you’ll need it later. Backups are also useful as reference to changed registry. Again, if you don’t want to reinstall the whole system, please back up the registry, even if you are experienced user.

After you create backup, you can start working with registry. In previous articles I was talking about registry and first steps for tweak hunt, by using Registry Monitor. If you did not read them yet, do it now. After that, you’ll follow this article with ease.

Virtualization

If you know what you are changing in registry, than backup is not so important. Why? Known tweaks are published all over the web and they can be marked as “safe”. There are many tutorials on how to work with registry, what this and that setting do, etc. But if you want to test them and tweak programs / system, you should be more careful. Backup is ok, but you can use something more elegant. Something that can create environment, where you do not care what effect will certain tweak have. Perfect tool for this is Vmware, software for PC virtualization. All you need is, OS image and then run it in VMware. When virtual PC is up, you have completely isolated and completely autonomous system, that is perfect for this kind of testing. If you corrupt it, you can delete it form you hard disk (because all is stored in a file), and open clean image and start it all over. In reality, you can do this in a few minutes. That is really neat, right? To repeat the procedure; you need to install PC virtualization software (like VMware) and install virtual system there. After you have stable virtual environment, you should create a copy of image for later backup use if needed. Then run virtual system and do whatever you want, run RegMon while changing settings or create registry snapshots. Registry Snapshots are copies made before and after some process which can then be compared for changes. That is very useful if you are installing program and you want to know what changes are made to registry. Remember, virtual machines are like your non-virtual system and can be used for usual tasks you do every day (writing, emailing, surfing, etc). It is system in a system.

What to use?

Registry Backup and Virtualization have their pros and cons. Backup is faster, but the restoration is questionable. Maybe after you corrupt the registry, you can not log in to Windows or Safe mode again and run registry restore. But this happens rarely or you accidentally deleted a part of your registry. To restore backup, you can use other techniques but are time consuming and requires other specialized tools. On the other hand we have virtualization, which also requires specialized tools. To prepare virtual machine you need some time, but when you have everything set and ready, the work is fast and safe, especially if you have image backup. The choice what to use is all yours. I would recommend virtualization if you have access to VMware images. You can also use free VMware Player which can be found at the URL bellow. If you need quick short tests, use backup with Registry Tweaker. As you can see, it depends on what you are doing.

I am not responsible for any damage caused to your System. But please, if you have any questions go to forum and ask there. I have opened new section about Windows Registry.

Links

To find more about VMware go to http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html.

Copyright © 2005, 2006 Miha Jakovac