How to Restore Previous Versions of the Registry in Windows 7

If you want to manually restore a specific section of the registry from a previous System Restore snapshot, or access some specific keys from an older version of the registry, you can do so by getting access to those files and then exporting sections from them. Here’s how to do it in Windows 7 or Vista.

Since Windows 7 and Vista utilize Shadow Copy, otherwise known as Volume Snapshot Service, to power the “Previous Versions” feature, there are snapshots of important files taken over time, including registry hives, so we can access the older versions of registry files this way without having to do a full System Restore.

This article was jointly written by myself and Ramesh from WinHelpOnline, who has also covered how to do the same thing on Windows XP.

Access Previous Registry Hives from Shadow Copy

Important Note: before we get started, we should really give you a disclaimer: you should not use this technique unless you know what you’re doing and are willing to deal with possible problems, or at least have some good backups of your files. Still here? Read on.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is disable User Account Control, because you can’t really access the folders otherwise. Once you’ve done that and rebooted, open up a new Windows Explorer window and head to the following folder:

C:\Windows\System32\Config

Right-click anywhere in the white space area of the folder, choose Properties from the menu, and then click the Previous Versions tab. Once you’re there, double-click the appropriate folder (Hint: Look at the Date modified field to decide which version of the files you want to restore.)

Note: If you’re using Windows Vista Home editions and you want to do this, you’re going to need to use Shadow Explorer to get to these files.

Select the registry hive files you need, and copy them to a folder of your choice.

Click OK when you see the Windows Security prompt.

And now you should have a folder containing the backup registry keys.

Now that you have the backup versions of the registry, you can use them to access the older version.

Loading a Registry Hive and Accessing Specific Keys

At this point you can load the entire registry hive into the registry, which will make it a sub-key of one of the main sections, and allow you to access settings from the older version. Open up the Registry Editor using regedit.exe in the Start Menu search or run boxes, click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_USERS, and then use File –> Load Hive.

You’ll be prompted to give the new hive a name—for this example I just used test.

And just like that, you can see the new key with the contents from last week’s backup copy. So, for instance, if one of the settings or license keys for an application was lost, we can find it by browsing through the keys for that application. You’ll have to manually make the changes if you’re doing just a few keys.

If you are trying to use this method to restore large chunks of the registry, you can export a key, modify the exported file to have the correct key path instead of Test, and then import it again. It’s a bit of a pain, but might be helpful if you need to.

Once you’re done, you should make absolutely certain to delete this entire key, or else it’s going to add a lot of extra bloat to your registry that you really don’t need.

Access the Previous Version’s Registry Keys Through the Command Line

Instead of loading the registry key using the GUI and adding all those keys to your current registry, you can use the RegFileExport tool from Nirsoft to access and extract the data from the backup files directly—you’ll just need to know the exact key that you’re looking for

So, for example, if you wanted to access the list of currently installed programs from the Programs and Features dialog. You’d run a command like this against the saved backup copy of the SOFTWARE registry hive—assuming you have the command-line application in the same directory as the backup file:

regfileexport SOFTWARE ExportedKey.reg “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall”

This will generate a regular .reg file that you can either double-click to enter the contents into the registry, or you can open it up and find specific keys that you might want to use.

This method can actually be used to easily restore sections of the registry, should you need to. It’s probably most useful for restoring the sections pertaining to a specific application.

Again, you should be very careful when editing the registry, but at least you know a lot more than you did before.

via howtogeek.com

Posted via email from ://allthings-bare

How to Check if Your Software or Hardware is Compatible with Windows 7

Do you have questions about the compatibility of a particular software or bit of hardware with Windows 7? You could experiment and find out the hard way or head over to the Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility page to do a quick and easy search instead.

Note: There may be some software or hardware that has not been listed at the Windows 7 Compatibility website yet.

The Windows 7 Compatibility Homepage

If you want to do a direct search at the compatibility homepage you can use the search functions located at the top. You will need to choose either software or hardware from the drop-down menu. Notice that there is an Advanced Search option available as well.

For those who are curious this is what the Advanced Search looks like.

Gong back to the compatibility homepage you can also choose to look through the categories available for software and hardware. First the software section…notice that each category has a drop-down menu to help you refine your search.

An example of what you will see. This is from the first page of Kids & Educational – Reference sub category.

Here is an example of a direct search for a particular software (Paint.NET). This particular software is listed as Status varies, so a quick click on View details will be helpful for understanding why.

The additional details for Paint.NET show which versions are and are not compatible with Windows 7.

As with software you can search through different categories of hardware to refine your search.

The first page of results for Displays – LCD sub category.

For our hardware search example we chose “HP w17e 17″ Widescreen Monitor”.  Looking good.

Using the Accelerators for Internet Explorer

If you use Internet Explorer there are two add-ons that you can install. The first is an accelerator to help you conduct searches for highlighted terms from the Context Menu. The second on adds a new search engine to the search box and a new accelerator to the Context Menu. Choose the one that best fits your needs or both if you like. For our Internet Explorer example we chose Winamp.

One thing to keep in mind when using the Search with Windows 7 Compatibility Center accelerator…it will default to a hardware search, so you may need to manually select software when the appropriate page opens. Using the Check Compatibility with Windows 7 accelerator will default to software when the appropriate page opens.

Just what we were looking for. Whether you use the homepage or Internet Explorer add-ons, this should help you find the answers you are looking for on Windows 7 compatibility.

Visit the Windows 7 Compatibility Homepage

Install the Windows 7 Compatibility Center Accelerator

Install the Windows 7 Compatibility Center Search Engine

via howtogeek.com

Posted via email from ://allthings-bare

Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7

Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7: "
We’ve received a lot of questions about mapping a drive from XP to Windows 7 to access data easily. Today we look at how to map a drive in Windows 7, and how to map to an XP drive from Windows 7.

With the new Homegroup feature in Windows 7, it makes sharing data between computers a lot easier. But you might need to map a network drive so you can go directly into a folder to access its contents. Mapping a network drive may sound like “IT talk”, but the process is fairly easy.

Map Network Drive in Windows 7

Note: All of the computers used in this article are part of the same workgroup on a home network.

In this first example we’re mapping to another Windows 7 drive on the network. Open Computer and from the toolbar click on Map Network Drive.



Alternately in Computer you can hit “Alt+T” to pull up the toolbar and click on Tools \ Map Network Drive.



Now give it an available drive letter, type in the path or browse to the folder you want to map to. Check the box next to Reconnect at logon if you want it available after a reboot, and click Finish.



If both machines aren’t part of the same Homegroup, you may be prompted to enter in a username and password. Make sure and check the box next to Remember my credentials if you don’t want to log in every time to access it.



The drive will map and the contents of the folder will open up.



When you look in Computer, you’ll see the mapped drive under network location.



This process works if you want to connect to a server drive as well. In this example we map to a Home Server drive.



Map an XP Drive to Windows 7

There might be times when you need to map a drive on an XP machine on your network. There are extra steps you’ll need to take to make it work however.

Here we take a look at the problem you’ll encounter when trying to map to an XP machine if things aren’t set up correctly. If you try to browse to your XP machine you’ll see a message that you don’t have permission.



Or if you try to enter in the path directly, you’ll be prompted for a username and password, and the annoyance is, no matter what credentials you put in, you can’t connect.



In this example we’re mapping from a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate machine to an XP Media Center Edition Laptop on a wireless connection where each machine as a different password.

To solve the problem we need to set up the Windows 7 local account as a user on the XP machine and make it part of the Administrators group to access the full drive. Right-click My Computer and select Manage.



Under Computer Management expand Local Users and Groups and click on the Users folder. Right-click an empty area and click New User.



Add in the user credentials, uncheck User must change password at next logon, then check Password never expires then click Create.



Close out of the New User Screen and you’ll see the user you created in the list. After the user is added, you may need to reboot XP before proceeding to the next step.



At this point you should be able to access the shared folders on the XP machine but not the entire drive. Here we’re browsing to the XP Media Center Edition machine.



Now we can enter in the user name and password we just created.



Now we can browse to and map specific shared folders on the XP machine.



However, when we try to map to the full drive, we get the annoyance of not being able to log in…



To access the full drive we need to make the user part of the Administrators group. So go back into Computer Management \ Local Users and Groups \ Groups then double click on Administrators.



Click the Add button in Administrators Properties window.



Enter in the new user you created and click OK. An easy way to do this is to enter the name of the user you created then click Check Names and the path will be entered in for you.



Now you see the user as a member of the Administrators group…click Ok.



Now we can map to the entire drive. Enter in the drive path where in this example it’s “\\XPMCE\C$” –Don’t forget the “$” sign after the local drive letter.



Then login…



Again the contents of the drive will open up for you to access.



Here you can see we have two drives mapped. One to another Windows 7 machine on the network, and the other to the XP computer.



If you ever want to disconnect a drive, just right-click on it and then Disconnect.



There are several scenarios where you might want to map a drive in Windows 7 to access specific data. It takes a little bit of work but you can map to an XP drive from Windows 7 as well. This comes in handy where you have a network with different versions of Windows running on it.

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