ERUNT

1.1j

Software information

License:

Freeware (Free)


Updated:

18 Sep 2012


Publisher:

Lars Hederer

Website:

http://larshederer.homepage.t-online.de

Software Screenshots

Size: 773 KB


Downloads: 3487


Platform: Windows (All Versions)

With the invention of Windows 95 Microsoft made the wise decision to
organize all computer- and application-specific data which was spread
over countless INI files before in a centralized Windows database,
called the system "registry". The registry is one of the most
important parts in every Windows system today, without which the OS
would not even boot. And since the registry is quite sensitive to
corruption, it is very advisable to backup its according files from
time to time.

In MS-DOS based Windows versions (95, 98, Me) the registry consists of
the files SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT (and CLASSES.DAT in Windows Me). To
backup these files, one can easily go to the Windows folder in
Explorer and copy the files to a safe location, for example another
folder on the hard disk. Microsoft even supplies a utility called ERU
which can be used to backup these and a few other critical system
files to a safe location.

Also, Windows 9x/Me automatically create backups of the registry at
startup, with Windows 95 always backing up the registry from the
previous Windows session, and Windows 98/Me maintaining up to five
registry copies from the last five days where Windows was running.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with Windows versions based on the
NT kernel. In Windows NT and 2000, the registry is never backed up
automatically, and in XP it is backed up only as part of the bloated
and resource hogging System Restore program which cannot even be used
for a "restore" should a corrupted registry prevent Windows from
booting. It has also become impossible to copy the necessary files,
now called "hives" and usually named DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE,
SYSTEM in the SYSTEM32CONFIG folder, to another location because they
are all in use by the OS. And though the registry in an NT-based
Windows is less likely to become corrupted than in other versions, it
can still happen, and for these cases NT is simply missing an option
for easy registry backup and restore as there is in Windows 9x/Me, to
get the system up and running again in no time.

In 2001, as Windows XP began to come pre-installed on many new home
user PCs and was likely to become the new Windows standard over the
next years, I decided to write a program which offers the ease-of-use
of Windows 9x/Me ERU by Microsoft (hence the name ERUNT) to backup the
registry, as well as providing an auto-backup capability, for example
at Windows startup.

Or, before installing a new program for testing purposes one could
save the registry with ERUNT, install and test the program, uninstall
it and restore the registry to be 100% sure that no debris is left.

Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for
making a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the
whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive
is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the
current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file,
it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that
has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new entries.

ERUNT
1.1j

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