Registry Editor is an advanced tool used for viewing and changing settings in your system registry. It contains all the information, settings of your computer. Even your user account username and password is saved in the resgistry (if configured to store in the registry).

As Registry Editor allows you to add/modify registry, it is advisable that you only use it if GUI does not provide the option you are looking for. If you make some incorrect changes, your system may crash and break :P . So it’s always good to make a backup of your registries before making any changes in it.

Method 1

This method is mostly used when you are making changes to some specific area in the registry, but it can also be used to make full backups.

To backup a selected branch/key, follow the instructions below:

• Click Start, and then click Run.
• In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK
• Locate and then click the key that contains the value that you want to edit
• On the File menu, click Export.
• In the Save in box, select a location where you want to save the registry entries
• In the File name box, type a file name, and then click Save.

(Click the image for a larger view)

Below the Save as type box, you will see Export Range. There you select the range you want to export. Select All if you want to backup all the settings, or select the second option, Selected Branch, to export only the selected branch.

Method 2

The other way to backup your registry is to use the System Restore tool in Windows. It restores your PC to a previous state (that you selected!), without losing anything, such as documents, history lists, favorites, or e-mail. This method is not reliable if you want to rollback the Registry changes made a longtime ago. So, I would better recommend using the first method for this case. By the way, these System Restore points gets deleted by themselves, so these are very unreliable.