Windows XP forum: CCleaner - How do we restore the registry from the backup?

Are interested in restoring the whole registry, click on Start/Run then tye "regedit" (without the quotes).

Now go to File/Import, select the location of the backup file, click on Open, this will re-write the WHOLE of the registry to your machine again.

Thanks. But how do we open the backup file? Would double clicking do? I am afraid to try it as it may restore the whole file into my registry. I had right click on the back up file though and on the ''open it with'' shortcut, I saw two programs, the registry editor and notepad. Would the registry editor do?

Hi Tom,

I did this when I was cleaning my PC, and I had backed up the registry succesfully. What I would like to find out is on how to restore it in case I made a mistake on the checking and unchecking portion of Ccleaner. Say if I had deleted what should not be. This is the first time I had used Ccleaner and I saw a hundred or more items and its time consuming to check on it one by one. So I removed all.

Regards,
Hotjoeker

Hi Hotjoeker,

In addition to all the good advice given here, you could consider a simpler approach.

XP's System Restore is a registry backup utility. It also backs-up other files, eg system files, as well as settings. If you create a System Restore point before using CCleaner, then if you do have any problems, you could just restore to the point before you ran it.

This may be easier than opening a registry backup file and deciding which entries to remove, if any, before integrating it back into the Registry.

Mark

But as it is a .reg file, (I believe), you could open it with Notepad, (drag and drop), and see if it can be edited from there. I've never tried it so I don't know what format it would display in Notepad.

It would be unwise, in my view, to try and edit the backup .reg file though. The Registry is finicky enough although XP's is far more stable than any previous Windows version, but even so, anthing goes wrong and the system could become unusable.

Mark

if you remove and backup a reg entry, it should merge easily. When I go to a folder with several reg entries, Windows recommends opening with reg editor. Notepad is on the list of others. I have been very conservative(paranoia?)with my removals using cc. I didn't have tens of potential leftover reg entries. So I deleted each backup containing one entry after safe waiting period. I will Google this question and check with cc.
I agree with you about the full registry backup, I use GoBack, SysRestore, or my trusty Erunt. See text link,top of page gives download site or Google it.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt

I have jv16 and I like it but I have not restored anything with it.
Any comments on RegSeeker?

So many cleaners, so little time.

Hi Woods,

I had visited Microsoft lately and I had read that aside from backing up the whole registry I can backup by keys or subkeys (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/#2A - see under ''Export registry subkeys''). But I guess if you have hundreds of registries to backup (like mine) then it would be best to backup the whole registry rather than do it one by one.

Wow, I had not tracked this discussions and I thought no one would add to this post after the second day. Anyway thanks for all who had posted herein and I am tracking this already in-case someone would still add comments. I guess as of now I would be doing a complete backup and restore just in-case it would be needed.

Again, thank you very much to all. I am now pretty sure I could get help from this forum.

Regards to all
Hotjoeker

Hi Tom,

When you run ccleaner, there are three option to chose. First the cleaner, second is the issues and third is the tools, The second option (issues) edits the registry, you have to select ''scan for issues'' first, then check uncheck settings you like to be corrected and then click on ''fix selected issues'', then the ccleaner will ask you if you would like to backup the registry or not before he does the fixing. After a successfull backup of the registry it will then start editing the registry, removing those you want removed. I think it does a full backup of the registry. This is the backup that I mean. I would like to find out how I could restore this backup to the registry. Say if I make an error in the checking or unchecking section. It does not backup one keys at a time. And when you made a mistake it would therefore restore the whole registry (I presumed). Now this is what I had gathered from the post above. Someone however told us that you could restore one key at a time and so I asked again how do I open the backup to restore one key at a time, and he did not replied. Hope this clarifies everything.

Regards,
Hotjoeker

Hi Woods,

Well yes it does not backup the whole registry but I guess it would return it to the previous state just before the cleaning was done.

But I don't trust it so much also and I believe the better way is to use regedit export command. This to backup the whole registry and not by sub-keys. And I plan to use this besides making a restore point first just in-case the backup wont work as suggested by one of the moderators of this site here (sorry I could not remember his name).

Regards,
Hotjoeker

Hi Woods,

I think there is no problem with this anymore. I had read the link from windows which you had given and I had even added it to my favorites. Was just trying to explain to Tom, because he still had post a message here.

OK just to let you be informed here is my plan. Actually I just tried CC because my PC is slowing down. Had checked it with all malware software suggested by CNET and nothing would speed it up like it use to be and so I tried cc.

Well since I had successfully backed up my registry before I had cleaned it, my plan now is to restore it to its original state,(in-case I found something wrong later) and then clean it again with fewer checked marks. But before I do this I would create a restore point first so that if the backup wont work then I could restore it using this restoration point. Talking of backing up, I could use the backup procedure describe by Microsoft site and also the backup file created by cc. I will use which one would be successful in restoring the registry. Then repeat the process until all is clean. When done I hope that my PC would be running faster than it is now. As a matter of fact I had enrolled in the free class of Cnet that is still going on about how to make your PC run faster. Not sure about the title but its close to this one.

Anyways Thank you very much for your time and effort to help me with this one.

Regards,
hotjoeker

"ccleaner will ask you if you would like to backup the registry or not before he does the fixing".


If you click yes it will ask you where you want to save it.When ever i save something i always save it in my documents.In this case i would name it CCBACKUP or something to that affect.For me its easy to find,i just click on my documents on the desktop.Now in my documents where i saved the backup there will be an icon named CCBACKUP,clickon it and you wil see that you export it back to the registry.

NOTE:ccleaner does not backup the entire registry,only what you chose to fix.

Tom