just another useful tool

another useful software and free tool too..try this it saved me today from a reformat.ERUNT IT AUTO BACKUPS THE REGISTRY ON EVERY REBOOT, YOU CAN SAFELY RESTORE THE REGISTRY EVEN IF YOU HAVE MULTIPLE WINDOWS INSTALLATION.IT CAN EVEN OPTIMIZE THE REGISTRY..


Look for the latest version here:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt


BELOW IS THE DESCRIPTION FROM THE SITE..


With the invention of Windows 95 Microsoft made the wise decision to
organize all computer- and application-specific data which was spread
over countless INI files before in a centralized Windows database,
called the system "registry". The registry is one of the most
important parts in every Windows system today, without which the OS
would not even boot. And since the registry is quite sensitive to
corruption, it is very advisable to backup its according files from
time to time.

In MS-DOS based Windows versions (95, 98, Me) the registry consists of
the files SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT (and CLASSES.DAT in Windows Me). To
backup these files, one can easily go to the Windows folder in
Explorer and copy the files to a safe location, for example another
folder on the hard disk. Microsoft even supplies a utility called ERU
which can be used to backup these and a few other critical system
files to a safe location.

Also, Windows 9x/Me automatically create backups of the registry at
startup, with Windows 95 always backing up the registry from the
previous Windows session, and Windows 98/Me maintaining up to five
registry copies from the last five days where Windows was running.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with Windows versions based on the
NT kernel. In Windows NT and 2000, the registry is never backed up
automatically, and in XP it is backed up only as part of the bloated
and resource hogging System Restore program which cannot even be used
for a "restore" should a corrupted registry prevent Windows from
booting. It has also become impossible to copy the necessary files,
now called "hives" and usually named DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE,
SYSTEM in the SYSTEM32\CONFIG folder, to another location because they
are all in use by the OS. And though the registry in an NT-based
Windows is less likely to become corrupted than in other versions, it
can still happen, and for these cases NT is simply missing an option
for easy registry backup and restore as there is in Windows 9x/Me, to
get the system up and running again in no time.

In 2001, as Windows XP began to come pre-installed on many new home
user PCs and was likely to become the new Windows standard over the
next years, I decided to write a program which offers the ease-of-use
of Windows 9x/Me ERU by Microsoft (hence the name ERUNT) to backup the
registry, as well as providing an auto-backup capability, for example
at Windows startup.

Or, before installing a new program for testing purposes one could
save the registry with ERUNT, install and test the program, uninstall
it and restore the registry to be 100% sure that no debris is left.

Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for
making a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the
whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive
is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the
current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file,
it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that
has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new entries.



Features
--------

- Backup the Windows NT/2000/2003/XP registry to a folder of your
choice

- System and current user registries selectable

- Command line switches for automated registry backup and restoration

- Restore the registry in Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/2003/XP and MS-DOS
(all-in-one restore program) or the Windows Recovery Console

- Included in this package:
NTREGOPT program for optimizing the registry

- All programs in this package are completely localizable
(translate them into your language), German version included



Supported operating systems
---------------------------

- Windows NT 3.51
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000
- Windows 2003
- Windows XP
- most likely, all future Windows versions based on the NT kernel

Additionally supported by the ERDNT restore program:
- MS-DOS
- Windows 95
- Windows 98
- Windows Me


Restoring the registry with ERDNT
---------------------------------

Situation: Windows is running normally.

To restore a previous registry backup, open Windows Explorer, navigate
to the folder where you saved the backup to, and double-click the
ERDNT.EXE file to start the restoration program. (Each restore folder
has its own copy of ERDNT.EXE in it.) Select which registry components
to restore, then click "OK" to start restoration. When the process is
complete, click "OK" to restart the computer and activate the restored
registry.

Note: If you experience any problems restoring the registry, please
read "ERDNT technical information" later in this document to learn
what ERDNT is actually doing during the process, or simply read on
through the following emergency scenarios for other ways of restoring
the registry.



What to do if Windows does not boot anymore?
--------------------------------------------

If Windows refuses to boot normally it can be for a variety of
reasons, not the least of which is that the registry is damaged, or
you installed a program or driver which is somewhat incompatible with
the system or buggy, in which case restoring a registry backup from a
point where everything was running smoothly should also help.

The first thing to try is to reboot and press the F8 key immediately
before the first Windows screen appears, then select the "Last Known
Good" option from the menu and see if Windows boots up with this
option. If it does, you're all set.

If it does not, reboot again with F8, and select the option "Safe
Mode". If Windows boots up in safe mode, you can restore a registry
backup just as you would in normal mode, as described above.

If safe mode also fails, read on...



Restoring the registry with ERDNT - Emergency Scenario I
--------------------------------------------------------

Situation: Windows fails to boot up in normal and safe mode, but you
have a DOS boot disk or another (working) operating system installed
on your PC which is supported by the ERDNT restoration program, and
from which you have full access to the drive(s) containing the corrupt
Windows installation and the registry backup.

Boot up to the working OS, and open the folder containing the registry
backup you want to restore.

If the drive letters are different to as they were in the Windows
where you created the registry backup, you need to edit the ERDNT.INF
file now to reflect the new drive letters, before trying to restore
the registry backup. For example, if the drive with the corrupt
Windows installation is now available as D: instead of C:, then you
would change all C:\... references in the INF file to D:\... . Editing
the file can be done in Windows with the Notepad program, and in DOS
with the EDIT command.

Now run the ERDNT.EXE file to start the restoration program. Select
which registry components to restore (just the system registry will do
in most cases), then start restoration. When the process is complete,
reboot the computer and check if the other Windows installation is
repaired now.



Restoring the registry with ERDNT - Emergency Scenario II
---------------------------------------------------------

Situation: Windows fails to boot up in normal and safe mode, and you
have no other working operating system installed on your PC.

The following two rescue methods require that your PC is configured so
that it can boot from CD. See your BIOS documentation for more
information.

1. Bart's PE Builder
Use another computer with Internet access and CD burning capabilities
to download this free program from the Internet (do a Google search
for it), which will create a bootable Windows CD with full access to
all drives (including NTFS). Boot from this CD, open the File
Management Utility and follow the directions in "Emergency Scenario I"
to run ERDNT and restore the registry.

2. The Windows Recovery Console (Windows 2000 and higher)
Note that you can use this method only if you saved the registry
backup inside the Windows folder, and that using this procedure only
the system registry is restored. This should however get you back into
Windows, from where you can run the ERDNT program to restore user
registries, if necessary.
- Boot your system from the Windows 2000/2003/XP CD-ROM.
- At the welcome screen, press "R" (Windows 2000: "R" then "C").
- Type in the number of the Windows installation you want to repair
(usually 1), then press ENTER.
- Type in the Administrator password and press ENTER.
- At the command prompt type
cd erdnt
or whatever you named your restore folder, then press ENTER.
- If you created subfolders for different registry backups (for
example, with the different creation dates), type
dir <ENTER>
to see a list of available folders, then type
cd foldername <ENTER>
where foldername is the name of a folder listed by the dir command,
to open that folder.
- Now type
batch erdnt.con <ENTER>
to restore the system registry from that folder.
- Type
exit <ENTER>
and remove the CD from the CD-ROM drive. The system will now reboot
with the restored registry.

 

Good stuff. I've been using ERUNT and NTREGOPT for a while with good results.

 

indeed its a very useful tool.unlike other registry backups softwares this one is a gem.. and you never know when the autoregistry backup at startup will come handy..

 

a new version of erunt was released today.version 1.1h.you can download it here..
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt-setup.exe