Needless to say, being the
database housing all settings and configurations of the Windows
operating system, Windows Registry is a vital component of the Windows
OS. Simply put, it is the brain of your desktop/laptop.
It is crucial that you back up your machine’s registry to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Windows Registry Editor and
System Restore, two useful components of the Windows OS, allow users to
back up the registry. On the other hand, neither of these applications
provides regular schedulable automatic backups.
There is always a solution for the ‘better
be safe than sorry’ crowd that I belong to. The Emergency Recovery
Utility for Windows NT (ERUNT) is a free software package available
online. ERUNT can both arrange scheduled automatic back ups and restore
your computer’s settings based on those backups.
Once installed and running, it starts with
establishing a host folder for the backups. I go with the default folder
which is C:\Windows\ERDNT. You will also be prompted to choose which
registry clusters (system registry and current user registry) to backup.
I choose back up both.
After these simple steps, ERUNT creates a copy of the Windows Registry whenever your system starts up.
You can find the automatic backups in
C:\Windows\ERDNT\AutoBackup. If disaster strikes as expected, all you
need to do is to access C:\Windows\ERDNT, find ERDNT.exe and run it. You
will see that the ERUNT utility will automatically restore the registry
with ease.
Label:
Computers
