Using the Microsoft Windows Backup-Archive Client

Restoring the Windows NT Registry

To restore the Windows NT registry, either in whole or in part:

1. Click on the Utilities menu.

2. Select Restore Registry.

3. Select each registry subkey you want to restore.

4. Select Activate key after restore to have the currently active copy of the registry keys saved and the restored keys activated.

5. Click on Restore once you select the keys you want.

6. Click on Restore to restore the registry.

7. If you want the registry keys to be activated after restore, reboot your system.

You can also use the regrest command to restore the registry. See Regrest for more information. Also, see the Windows NT resource guide for more information about the NT registry.

If you cannot boot Windows NT, you might be able to manually restore the registry if you can boot DOS or another operating system that does not use the registry. During backup and restore, ADSM saves copies of the registry on the NT machine in the following directories (assuming that your system drive is named WINNT):

WINNT\ADSM.SYS\Registry

This directory contains subdirectories that are named after the NT machine name. For example, if the machine name is TANENHAUS, the directory would be:

   WINNT\ADSM.SYS\Registry\TANENHAUS

In each of these subdirectories reside the following directories that contain copies of the registry made during backup or restore.

MACHINE

This directory contains the following files:

Sam

The Security Accounts Manager database.

Security

The Security Policy database.

Software

The Local Machine Software configuration.

System

The Local Machine System configuration.

USERS

This directory contains the following files and directories:

Directory

This directory is named after the user who was logged on when the registry was backed up or restored. For example, if the user was named PETE, the full directory would be:

   WINNT\ADSM.SYS\Registry\TANENHAUS\PETE

This directory contains files that are the user's current (logged on) user profile.

Default

This file is the default user profile.

WINNT\ADSM.SYS\Registry.Sav

This directory contains a saved copy of the registry before a restore. When you use ADSM to restore the registry, ADSM backs up the current registry to this directory, so that you can restore it if Windows NT does not boot with the newly restored registry.

The directory structure in this directory is the same as for WINNT\ADSM.SYS\Registry.

With Windows 95, the registry can be backed up as ordinary files. Special commands are not needed to restore the registry.