The default registry editor that comes with Windows does its job with very few bells and whistles, something that can be desirable in a tool that tinkers with the guts of your operating system. Still, there are some features that would make using it much easier, but it’s unlikely Microsoft will get around to adding them. Enter Resplendence with its Registrar Registry Manager, which adds bookmarks, regular expression searches and defragmentation tools to your registry-editing arsenal.
While sharing passing similarities to Windows’ standard editor (mostly with the Explorer-style interface), the Registrar UI features a chunky tool and address bar — the latter allowing you to instantly jump to a key without having to plod your way through node after node.
Not that you’ll need to do this often as you can bookmark registry locations for future tinkering.
Registrar also boasts faster search and replace operations and better comparison tools. There’s also the ability to browse registered COM objects via the utility’s CLSID tool, monitor changes and a defrag option to keep your registry “running smoothly”.
Unfortunately, some of the more powerful features of Registrar, including regular expression searches, are part of the Pro edition, which will set you back $US54.49 — quite a chunk of coin for a utility of its type. I’d certainly consider it at less the $US20, and snap it up for $US10-15.
Registrar Registry Manager [Resplendence, via gHacks]
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6 responses to “Forget Windows’ Registry Editor Even Exists With This Expert Replacement”
When I was in Desktop Dev we used a Registry Editor tool which monitored the Registry for changes, very useful. For example say you wanted to change the icon size for a fleet of PCs, sure these days you could google how or there is probably a group policy but if those things are not available for something really specific you needed to do all you have to do is start the registry record, go and change the font size through the GUI as you normally would then go back to the registry tool. It will display a log of all the registry that were changed and export them to a .reg, then just push the .reg to all PCs.
What was it called?
I cannot remember but I know its compatible with W7, not sure about W8. I will email my old college because I really want to know now.
I was called Windows Sys Internals,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842062
seems like the new version is this, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/sysinternals/bb896645
Try googling sysinternals regmon. This will take you to a page that directs you to the location of the new (IMHO, inferior and less convenient) kitchen sink tool that has “replaced” regmon and other utilities. That’s what I use (while wishing that the simpler regmon was still an option.)