The Windows Registry is the primary control center for the Windows OS. It stores data and key values that instruct all the programs and applications on how to function properly. When something breaks or fails in the Registry, your computer can fail completely. The Registry should not be tampered with, unless you know exactly what you are doing. There are many Registry tweaks that add functionality, but be careful when applying any edit that you are not sure of.
If you plan to use a Registry cleaner, or if you ever want to manually edit the Registry, you should always keep a backup handy. With a copy of the Registry, you can have a little more confidence in case anything bad happens. Backing up the registry is useful in the event of registry corruption, Spyware, Adware or viruses. Below is a quick guide on how to backup the Registry in Vista and Windows 7.
Once you have a backed up Windows Registry, then you can always roll back to the backed up version, in case anything ever goes wrong. We recommend that you be careful before doing any manual edits to the registry. Small edits can cause big damage. We don’t really advise anyone to perform any edits to the Registry unless you really know what you are doing. The Registry is extremely powerful and it is better left to the experts. If you do intend to repair the Registry, leave it to quality Registry repair software such as RegCure or CCleaner. You can read a full RegCure review for more details.
Quick steps to backing up the Windows Registry:
- Start the Registry editor, type “regedit” in the quick search box
- Click File -> Export
- Give the file a name (eg: reg_backup)
- Change export range to all
- The entire backup should take a few seconds
- Done!
You now have a copy of the Windows Registry. We advise that you keep a copy on external storage too. So if anything ever happens to your main hard drive, you will have a copy that you can easily access. Your Registry backup won’t be very large, so it is easy to store on disk or flash drive.
