Compare Registries ??

Is there a way to compare registries say that of my old XP box and
that of my new Win7 box?

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
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| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

On 11/4/2015 10:46 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:
Is there a way to compare registries say that of my old XP box and
that of my new Win7 box?

...Jim Thompson


You can export the registry on each machine to text .REG files using
regedit and then compare the two files using your file comparison tool
of choice. But in many cases you'll be comparing apples to oranges since
the operating systems are different.

If there's a specific sub-branch of the registry that you're interested
in, it would be better to export just that sub-branch on each machine
and compare those files. Much less 'junk' to wade through.

Jim Thompson wrote:

Is there a way to compare registries say that of my old XP box and
that of my new Win7 box?

Use regedit's export and use a diff tool to compare the exported files.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/171780
http://www.softpedia.com/get/File-ma.../WinDiff.shtml

There are a lot of WinDiff alternatives, some free, some payware.
WinDiff from Softpedia is an old 5.1 version. I've read that there is a
newer version available in the Win 7 SDK. It gets put in the
MicrosoftSDKs/Windows/v7.1/Bin after installing the SDK.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...s.aspx?id=8279

I've heard of but not used WinMerge. It's free.

http://winmerge.org/

Uses the Qt library (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28software%29).
I've used this before but do not recall why it was removed from my Win7
setup. Others here might chime in on what they like for a free diff
tool.

VanguardLH wrote:

Others here might chime in on what they like for a free diff tool.

Also ask in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup about a diff tool if free is
a criteria.

VanguardLH wrote on 11/4/2015 12:36 PM:
Jim Thompson wrote:

Is there a way to compare registries say that of my old XP box and
that of my new Win7 box?

Use regedit's export and use a diff tool to compare the exported files.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/171780
http://www.softpedia.com/get/File-ma.../WinDiff.shtml

There are a lot of WinDiff alternatives, some free, some payware.
WinDiff from Softpedia is an old 5.1 version. I've read that there is a
newer version available in the Win 7 SDK. It gets put in the
MicrosoftSDKs/Windows/v7.1/Bin after installing the SDK.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...s.aspx?id=8279

I've heard of but not used WinMerge. It's free.

http://winmerge.org/

Uses the Qt library (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28software%29).
I've used this before but do not recall why it was removed from my Win7
setup. Others here might chime in on what they like for a free diff
tool.

I like winmerge as it compares both 2 folder contents for files, and 2 files for contents. Not sure why the word
'merge' came into the program except that you can see the differences between files/folders and merge the
missing/changed files manually.

Takes a bit of getting used to though, heavy learning curve.