Working with REG files in Reg Organizer
October 29, 2010 (updated 8 years ago) by Chemtable Software
Reg Organizer has a special tool that allows you to edit registry data directly. The tool is called Registry Editor. The editor offers many options for performing various operations on the registry. These options considerably exceed those that you can get in the standard Windows registry editor, Regedit.
Using Reg Organizer, you can edit, create and delete keys, parameters and their values. The editor can be used to export and import a specific key, set of keys, or the entire registry to file, edit registry files (.reg) and modify selected values. Now let’s see how you can use all this to maintain your registry.
Once you open the editor, you see the window that displays the tree of keys in the left area and the list of parameters for a selected key in the right area. The most convenient way to work with keys and parameters is via the context menu, although you can use the menu bar on top of the window. Using this menu, you can create new keys and parameters, edit and delete the existing ones, add keys and parameters to Favorites.
Once a key is added to Favorites, you can open it in the registry editor by selecting its name on the Favorite menu. It makes it quick and easy to access the items that you use frequently.
The program also has the ability to run a search in the registry as you work in the editor. This tool can search information in the selected key you are working on at the moment. On selecting Key > Search in This Key, the Registry Search and Replace dialog opens that shows the selected keys.
When the search is finished, you can go back to the registry editor by clicking the Registry Editor button on the left panel of the main window. Also, you can switch to the editor mode by double-clicking on any of the found keys in the list in the lower area of the window in the Registry Search and Replace tool.
The program is able to export and import registry keys to a registry file. A registry file is a textual or binary file that contains information about keys and parameters of the registry. Data from this file can be added to the registry (import), and registry data can be used to create a registry file (export).
There are different ways to export keys. You can save the entire registry or a selected key to file. This file contains the key, all subkeys and parameters which are contained in the key and child keys. It is also possible to export a selected key without subkeys. In this case, only the current key and its parameters are exported.
You can export keys in one of the two formats – the new format which is used in Windows XP, in earlier versions or the old format that was used in earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. You can select the format in the window for selecting the name of an exported file. The difference between the formats lies in the encoding that is used. Older operating systems relied on ANSI encoding, while new systems use Unicode.
An interesting peculiarity of the program is that you can make a registry file from different keys. For this, you need to open the Key menu, select Add Key to… and select an external file to be used to add that key. This is a unique feature that cannot be found in the standard editor Regedit.
The opposite to export is import of data to the registry from a registry file. And the unique feature here is deletion of data from the registry by using data from a registry file. In the first place, this option may be interesting to the users who have to import various keys and parameters of the registry from a registry file with the extension .reg. This feature deletes from the registry all keys and parameters contained in the selected REG file.
External registry files in the REG format can be opened in the editor for viewing and editing. Each file of this type can be opened in a separate tab which allows the user to switch between them quickly. The interface for working with a registry file is almost similar to the interface for working with the registry itself: it has the same commands to create, delete, and edit keys and parameters. Preview of external files before import allows you to see data to be added to the registry, keys and parameters that will be influenced by import.
