How to extract environment variables from system restore point, Windows 7 64-bit

Question

Recently a (badly written) piece of software erased my PATH variable. I've been installing software for years and recovering every single entry would be cumbersome. An even more cumbersome solution would be to restore from previous system restore point. Any ideas on how to get the PATH variable alone from the restore point?

Answer 1

You can mount the old version of the registry.

1. Open Regedit

User:
2. Select HKEY_USERS
3. File->Load Hive
4. Navigate to your user folder, click the little button to the right of "Open" for "Show Previous Versions"
5. Select appropriate revision
6. Select NTUSER.DAT
7. Give it a name (e.g. "Old")
8. Navigate to "Old"\Environment

System:
2. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
3. File->Load Hive
4. Navigate to your C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack, click the little button to the right of "Open" for "Show Previous Versions"
5. Select appropriate revision
6. Select SYSTEM.OLD
7. Give it a name (e.g. "Old")
8. Navigate to "Old"\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Environment

Note that for System, depending on how long ago this was, you can just go back into HKLM\(old control set version)\Control\Session Manager\Environment without loading an old hive, but this is a generally useful way to apply "Restore Previous Versions" to the registry.

Answer 2

Well, this would be kinda hackish, but you could restore back to get the path and restore forward again to your current state.