7.11. Backing Up and Restoring a Registry

By now, it should be pretty clear that the Registry is an important piece of information and that it should be protected. It protects itself pretty well with its LOG files, but how can you back it up?

Unfortunately, the fact that Registry hive files are always open makes it tough to back up the Registry since most backup utilities are stymied by open files. Server 2008 will back up your entire Registry, but unfortunately you can't tell 2008's backup program to only back up the Registry. You see, Windows Server 2008 completely changed the way backup works, and as of Windows Server 2008 two new things happen. First, no server can back itself up without adding a "backup role" — not the end of the world, but I'm not certain why anyone would create an actual production server without being able to back it up. Second, the new-to-2008 Server backup program only backs up entire drives, so there's not really a way to back up just the Registry in Windows, starting with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. That's probably not terrible given the low cost of extra hard disks, but, again, it is a bit odd and you can learn more about it in the last chapter of the second book. Furthermore, it's sort of a shame that 2008 makes it so hard to back up and restore some or all of the Registry — years ago, NT 4.0 had a neat little program called RDISK that would do it. Sadly, RDISK is gone with no replacement.