Registry backup and key recovery in Windows

In every self-respecting blog, where there is talk of Windows there are always articles and guides that call into question the system registry, attention is always drawn to the fact that when it is modified you have to be very careful and maybe make a backup to use it in case you make mistakes. The problem with the registry is that any changes are automatically saved and, if incorrect, can bring errors if not the possibility that the PC stops working properly.
This applies both to manual changes and also to automatic cleaning of some programs called Registry Cleaner, which I have talked about in the past, but which I personally always recommend avoiding.
A registry backup is useful for restoring changes and returning to the previous situation without having to reinstall everything. A reset of the registry keys, on the other hand, can be useful to bring Windows back to the way it was after the installation, canceling any changes made also via control panels, settings and other configuration screens.

What is the registry "> modify the registry keys, to open the editor you have to search, from the Windows Start menu, for the regedit command and execute it.

Back up the Windows registry

To backup and save the registry for safety and to be ready to restore it in case of changes, there are two ways .
The first is to open the registry by looking for regedit from the Start menu search box, select the key you want to save, that is to say in one of the tree folders on the left and then go to File> Export and save the file. type .reg . To restore the saved registry keys, just double click on the .reg file. This way you can save certain registry keys so you can easily restore them to go back after a change.
If you want to save the entire registry instead, select the first item in the upper left (the word Computer ) in the registry editor click on the word Computer, then click on File at the top and export everything to a file. reg.
This file, however, in addition to being larger than 300 Mega, cannot be restored. Trying to double-click on the saved file that contains the whole registry, in fact, you receive an error that says that some keys are in use by Windows and cannot be changed.
To restore a backup of the entire Windows registry it is necessary to start the PC with a DVD or a USB stick containing the installation files of Windows 10 (or other versions) and then, without proceeding with the installation, use the option to correct the problems and using the command prompt, find, in the correct computer disk (you will have to try because the letters representing the disk drives here are different than the ones you used to see) and restore the .reg file.
Then from the command prompt, use the following commands to restore the backup:
X: (here the letter can be different, try writing C: and then run a dir command to see if it is the exact disk that contains the computer files and the Windows folder)
cd windows \ system32
md config_backup
copy config config_backup
copy config \ regback config / y

Automatic backup of the registry in Windows 10

The registry backup was automatic in Windows 10 until the Windows 10 1803 update in which Microsoft turned off the automatic Windows 10 registry backup feature. To reactivate it, open a Windows command prompt from the Start menu (or a window Powershell) and run this command:
reg add "HKLM \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Configuration Manager" / v EnablePeriodicBackup / t REG_DWORD / d 1
Then restart your PC and Windows 10 will have created a scheduled operation for automatic registry backup.
The folder where the automatic backup of Windows 10 is saved will be in the internal path to the disk where the system is installed, in \ Windows \ System32 \ config \ RegBack .

Backup and restore the registry

The easiest effective way to backup the registry whenever there is a change to be made is to create a restore point .
As already explained, to create a restore point you only need to search, always from the search box of the Start menu of Windows 10, 7 and 8, the word "restore" and then click on Create a restore point. This saves the current state of the PC, so in case of problems you can always restore the system configuration and cancel all changes made to the file and the registry.
In Windows 10 and Windows 8 you can proceed with a system restore by entering the safe mode of Windows 10 and 8, holding down the Shift key when clicking on Restart from the PC lock screen.
To do a complete reset of the registry and restore it to the factory settings of Windows, there is no procedure indicated, but you can do the reset of Windows 10, which is like a reinstallation that however does not delete the personal files and works very well to clean up Windows of all programs and errors.
In another article I had also reported the RefreshMyPC program to restore the registry keys to their original state, which however I have never been able to try.
Finally, if you wanted to make a real backup of the registry, you can use the Erunt program or Windows Registry Recovery, which are two of the programs to modify the Windows registry keys in an easier way .