EMCO Remote Registry Exporter is a free tool that allows exporting registry keys or backing up the entire registry from network PCs.

Submitted by Igor Vinnykov

Windows registry is an important source of information for network administrators. Many of us have own stories telling how to extract some hidden information from the registry or apply registry tweaks to change the Windows or applications behavior. No doubt, accessing raw data stored in the registry requires some knowledge, but sometimes it is the only way to check the system or application settings. If you need a tool to help you with accessing registry information on remote PCs, a free EMCO Remote Registry Exporter is right for you.

EMCO Remote Registry Exporter

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AutoAdministrator allows you to remote change passwords, remote Windows registry editing, remote file copy, and to remote edit the ODBC configuration.

In the last part of this series, I covered AutoAdministrator’s remote execution features. Today’s post will describe the remote editing functions.

Note: 4sysops readers get a discount on AutoAdministrator of $20 USD until the end of 2010, which means that you pay only $49 USD instead of the regular price of $69 USD. indicating that you are a 4sysops reader.

Remotely manage passwords

This is one of my favorite AutoAdministrator features. It allows you to verify, change, and reset passwords remotely on multiple machines. This function is especially useful if you want to change the local administrator password on all your machines. Since managing local passwords on multiple machines is somewhat cumbersome, most admins don’t change local administrator passwords often enough.

With AutoAdministrator, you can perform this important security task with a few mouse clicks. The verify function enables you to check if all computers received the new password.

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RegScanner is another nifty NirSoft tool that allows you to search the Windows Registry more conveniently than with the built-in regedit utility. The main difference is that RegScanner’s displays all found entries immediately and you don’t have to jump from hit to hit. This display method is much more efficient than regedit’s, particularly if RegScanner finds many entries for your search term, because you can skim quickly over the search results without having to press the F3 key until your fingers go numb.

Search Windows Registry

Perhaps even more interesting is that RegScanner offers some very useful search options. For instance, you can limit your search to keys that were modified within a certain time range. This is helpful if you installed a program recently and you only want to find Registry keys that belong to this program.

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In this article you will learn how to use Windows tool regedit as an offline registry editor. All you need is a second Windows installation or a Windows PE boot stick.

If a computer no longer boots up, often a rogue Registry setting is the culprit. In these cases you need an offline Registry editor, that is you have to edit the Registry from a second installation.  Although there are third party offline Registry editors, you can use regedit as an offline Registry editor. The procedure described here also works with Windows PE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) or Windows RE (Windows Recovery Environment).

Prepare Windows RE or Windows PE

• Windows RE: You only need a Windows 7 or Windows Vista installation DVD. After you boot from the DVD, click “Next,” then click “Repair your computer,” then click “Next” (Use recovery tools), and then “Command Prompt.”

• Windows PE: You can also use Windows PE to launch an offline Registry editor. Check out my article about creating a bootable WinPE USB flash drive for more information.

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Free Registry Defrag is a simple tool that allows you to defragment a fragmented Registry database, which can significantly speed up a PC. Don’t mix up Registry defragmentation with Registry cleaning. The CCleaner tool, which I reviewed some days ago, can remove unnecessary Registry entries. In contrast, Free Registry Defrag just removes the gaps within the database.

Windows and third party applications constantly write to and remove data from the Registry database. This produces empty areas in the Registry and data become fragmented (scattered) within the Registry file. This process is comparable to disk fragmentation. However, running a disk defrag tool won’t help to reduce Registry defragmentation. Disk defrag tools don’t change the contents of files, while a Registry defrag tool alters the database. This is why Registry defragmentation usually compacts, i.e., reduces, the size of the Registry file.

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Many believe that Windows is a bloated operating system. However, the truth is that the Windows ecosystem is bloated, bloated like the shopping malls in western countries, allowing you to buy everything your heart desires. Of course, you can always use another operating system if you prefer a “political system” that gives you fewer choices and less freedom. Yet another option is to cleanse your “garage” every now and then from all the junk that you no longer need. And this is where CCleaner comes in.

CCleaner is a famous free optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. I should have added it long time ago to the list of free administration tools, because it is a valuable tool for admins who have to clean a user’s PC that has been cluttered with junk. This usually improves the performance of a Windows PC that has become slow because too many applications have been installed over time, often leaving traces even after they have been uninstalled. CCleaner can also help to free disk space. If you are planning to upgrade your PC to Windows 7, then it might make sense to get rid of all of the deadwood first—although I would always recommend that you perform a fresh install of a new Windows version.

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Most Windows programs have to be registered to work properly. Registering means that the files of the application (exe, dll, ocx, etc.) store their information to the Windows registry. Usually, this is done during the installation process, but sometimes you have to do it manually if problems occur.

If an application doesn’t work, the first thing to do is to uninstall it and install it again. This often helps simply because corrupted registry entries have been added again to the registry. If it is a simple program with a couple of DLLs you can just register them manually using the regsvr32 command.

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AcessEnum from Microsoft’s Sysinternals tool collection enables you to list user accesses to a tree of directories or registry keys. With Windows Explorer or a registry editor you can only view access rights for a particular object, a certain folder, for example. If a directory has many subfolders it is difficult to figure out if access rights have been configured properly.

AccessEnum only lists the users and groups who have read or write access and where the deny attribute has been set. In most cases that should be enough though. What I like most about the tool is that it allows you to compare the current configuration with saved settings. This way you can easily find out if someone manipulated access permissions on a certain directory structure. If you right click on a column you can access the folder’s properties and you can also exclude a folder with its subfolders from the list.

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Regedit, the Registry editor that comes with Windows is a rather simple tool. It makes sense to use a third-party tool, even if you only have to edit the Windows Registry every once in a while. RegAlyzer is a free Registry editor with useful features.

My favorite feature is its search functionality. RegAlyzer supports different search criteria such as wildcards, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and even regular expressions. You can also limit your search by date (newer than, older than, between and outside of). However, the latter didn’t work properly when I tested it.

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TrackWinstall is a free tool that informs you about the changes a setup program made to your Windows installation. It shows you what files where added or removed and which files were changed by the setup program. It also lists all Registry changes.

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The Neuber Software Security Task Manager rates the security risk of all running Windows processes. The rating is based on criteria, like the ability to record keyboard inputs, if its files are hidden or if the process could manipulate other programs. All in all, I counted 20 similar criteria. There are also criteria which reduce the rating, for example, if it was signed by Microsoft or if you commented the process. (more…)

If you only edit the registry, every now and then, you probably will get along with the Windows registry editor. However, the more you work in a Windows environment the more you will realize the need to change the registry for many important settings. This is especially true, if you use Group Polices to configure multiple PCs in your network. RegCOPA is a Registry editor, which has some useful features, if you have to access the registry often.

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You probably know that Microsoft validates your Windows XP, every time you install an update. The German magazine PC Professionell (08/06) has an interesting article (print) about recent changes in this validation process. It seems that WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) is now contacting Microsoft daily.

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It seems fashionable lately for every simple program to have a component which starts when the system boots up. Often this is not necessary and just costs valuable memory space. There is another kind of “application” which considers themselves important enough to run all the time: malware i.e. spyware, trojans, computer worms, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to check regularly which programs will start when Windows boots up. Startup Contral Panel and StartupMonitor are free tools which configure and monitor the programs that start when your computer boots up.

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