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Editing Registry Files on Other Partitions

Recently, I had a need to make changes to the System entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, which is not allowed by Windows for the currently running copy. Fortunately for me I have two copies of XP for testing purposes, so in order to make the change I simply had to boot into the other copy of XP and make the changes from there.

In order to make changes to registry files on another copy of Windows on a different partition simply run regedit in a seperate copy of Windows and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Then click "Load Hive..." in the File menu. The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE files for Windows XP are located in "C:\WINDOWS\System32\config" and do not have extensions (where C: is the letter of the drive which contains the copy of Windows you are trying to edit). You will be prompted to enter a name, where you may enter whatever you wish. Once you have loaded the files, make the necessary changes and then, with the loaded key selected, click "Unload Hive..." in the file menu. It is important not to miss the last step.

And there you have it, editing registry files for a seperate copy of XP in a multiboot environment.

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Tags: Windows XP, Tip, Registry, Multiboot