Converting .reg to plain text

[eaglebtc]

I have a piece of data that I want to pull out of a Windows registry file. It was generated by XP, but it's in the System Restore folder, and I do NOT want to go back to a few days ago for this little bit of info. Is there a way to convert a .REG file into plain text from the command line? Or perhaps a GUI to read this info?

Thanks,

- brad

[username]

i think you can just rename the extention... i know you it works the other way around (txt to reg)

[techquilla]

to read it, just use notepad, to convert it to txt, change the file extension to .txt... that's all....^^

[bangbang023 Veteran]

  iomayho said:

to read it, just use notepad, to convert it to txt, change the file extension to .txt... that's all....^^

*sigh* that's the solution yes........my how some people underestimate how useful notepad is.

[eaglebtc]

Cmon what do you take me for, a n00b? :wacko:

If it were a plain text file i would have found the data already. It's a machine code file, that starts with this:

regf'1  '1  ?u?B??                  P%    a n d   S e t t i n g s \ B r a d l e y \ n t u s e r . d a t

So how do I convert one of these without importing fir:p? :p

[Arch]

That's not really a .reg file then. Or maybe it's just compressed?? You're probably screwed if windows update encodes all of its data.

[loc[a]lhost]

  Arch said:

That's not really a .reg file then. Or maybe it's just compressed?? You're probably screwed if windows update encodes all of its data.

actually, it is. once i had a look at the .reg file of the reset crack and it also was like that :p

[Merbac]

Just adding my two cents worth to the discussion, even though I can't solve the problem for you.

Since WinXP and Win2000, regedit writes exports into .reg files, which are binary and can not be read with notepad or any other texteditor. If you want to have a readable export from regedit under WinXP you must choose a different file type (REGEDIT 4) when doing the export.

However, I do not know how to convert from regedit5 to regedit4 formats.

But what you could do is to export exactly those keys that are in your unreadable .reg file from your current installation (so with different values) into another file, then re-import the .reg file you can't read. Re-export it into a regedit4 format, and finally re-import your original settings. That way your system will be unchanged and you can then read you registry keys and values. All this is of course assuming that you know which keys are in that .reg file you have.

[Japlabot]

[1] export your .reg file from XP

[2] find the exported .reg file

[3] right click and select 'Edit'

[4] Go to the 'File' menu and then click 'Save As...'

[5] In the Encoding section, Change it from 'Unicode' to 'ANSI'

[6] Click save, you might also have to change 'Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00' to 'REGEDIT4'

if that doesn't work, I think that wordpad can also open Unicode files

[tmeg]

  SMG said:

if that doesn't work, I think that wordpad can also open Unicode files

Notepad can open and edit Unicode as well. So need to use wordpad.

[eaglebtc]

This reg file was already generated by Windows - it's in my System Volume Information folder, as part of a restore point. That's why I didn't want to import it.

Hasn't someone invented a Reg5 > Reg4 / Text converter? :p

[xendrome]

Please don't bump topics that are 13 years old