On 28-4-2012 18:58, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 9:45, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/28/2012 4:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Got a fair number of games that flat won't run without those keys,
>>> and not
>>> all of them are recoverable from the sites they originally got
>>> registered
>>> to. All of which makes things a massive pain in the ass.
>>
>> Fair enough. I'd count that as installation materials, which you'd
>> need to
>> have to reinstall. Of course, the worst are when you get such a key,
>> and it
>> dials out to their server to verify it, and their server is toast after a
>> few years. I've had a couple like that.
>
> Or, incidentally, if you get one of those, dump the entire registry as a
> text file and back *that* up. At least then in the event of disaster you
> can find what you're looking for. (In regedit, save it as an NT4
> registry, and it'll be readable text, IIRC.)
>
IIRC because programs under windows dump a lot of unnecessary data in 
the registry, restoring from a backup will take more than a day (if it 
ever completes, we have never waited more than a weekend)

According to my brother there are backups of the registry in System 
Volume Information directory, IIRC also under a different name than the 
actual registry files, just to make life easier.
I can not access that dir, I don't have permission (or my own machine at 
home that is). You need to boot from a live-cd or connect the c-drive as 
a secondary drive to another machine to have access.



-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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