How do I create a backup of the entire Windows registry?
Press WinKey+r, type regedit
,
press Enter.
Then right-click Computer and choose Export.
Save the .reg
file to a place that you remember if and when you need
it.
Making a backup of the entire registry after a fresh installation is a
great idea, but beware that it's going to be a BIG file.
In my case, I backed up the entire registry on Windows 10, build
version 22H2.
The exported file is about 507 MB in size.
Never ever consider restoring this 507 MB file in its entirety!
The way to use this backup is to copy-paste small chunks from it,
or to just look inside it for comparison with parts in
your current installation of Windows.
This is particularly useful if you manipulated the registry, and
are now worried that you broke it, or just wonder what the registry
looked like before you started to make changes to it.
The 507 MB file is going to be awkward to handle.
Consider it to be a safety backup that you hopefully will never need.
Back up the part of the registry you intend to manipulate
In addition to backing up the entire registry, before you
make any changes, also backup just the narrow part of the registry
where you intend to make changes.
For example, I'm about to add some keys to
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft
.
Hence, I made a backup of exactly that registry key.
The resulting registry file is merely 4 kB.
This is of course much easier to look inside and/or copy-paste from
than a 507 MB registry file that covers the whole registry.
1
1
Exporting the entire registry from a computer with a non-fresh
installation, with the intention to run this .reg
file
(or parts of it) on a fresh installation of Windows, is the exact
opposite of how you should use a backup of the registry.
This might explain the negative feedback (downvotes) your question has
received.