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Registry Commander, Advanced Windows Registry Editor

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:04:55 +0000

Most Windows users make use of the built-in Registry editor when they need to change settings in it. The Registry editor does have a few shortcomings that only become obvious on second glance. Users who just use it to change a single key that they know the path of won’t see those, administrators and tech savvy users on the other hand might.

The search for instance is not really that usable as it offers barely any search options. It lacks for example options to find only specific data types or sizes.

Registry Commander is an advanced Windows Registry editor that uses a completely different layout than the default editor. That’s a problem as it means that users need to get used to the new layout first before they can make full use of the editor.

The biggest difference is the folder view of Registry Commander. It displays the Registry hive at the top and its folders in a Windows Explorer like mode.

Each folder is listed with its name and value which includes the number of subkeys and values. A double-click displays the new keys and values in the interface. It is possible to change the hive with a right-click on the path at the top. The application can connect to remote Registry hives as well.

The search is one of the strengths of the portable application.Another interesting feature is the ability to set bookmarks which can then be accessed directly whenever the program is opened. Handy for users who often work with the same set of Registry keys.

Registry Commander is a handy portable software designed for users who need more control over the Windows Registry. The software is available for download at the developer website. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

It offers to search the entire Registry or only part of it. Filters are available to only display data that matches specific parameters defined by the user.

Regalyzer Advanced Registry Editor

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:04:37 +0000

One could say that Regalyzer starts there where the default Windows Registry editor and Regscanner stop. Don’t get me wrong, Regscanner is a great program but it has one great weakness and that is the fact that you cannot edit the Registry in the software directly but have to rely on Regedit to edit the entries that you have found with Regscanner. Regalyzer on the other hand provides the advanced search capabilities of Regscanner with the option to edit Registry keys directly.

The main window of Regalyzer resembles that of Regedit but you will notice the bar at the top that contains the search and a history function that displays the Registry keys that have been used lately. It also offers a way of pasting a Registry key into it to jump directly to that key, very handy if you quickly want to change a setting and have the full key at hand.

The search is independent from the main program and opens up in a new window. It displays the result just like Regscanner does which means that all search results are displayed immediately and you are not forced to jump from result to result like in Regedit. Four Search Styles are available: Simple Search, Wildcard Search, Boolean Search and Regular Expressions.

You can also limit the search to specific range, certain data types and several other options. There is also a find and replace feature build in. Once you have selected a key you will notice the additional tabs that contain Security Information, Additional Information and a Change Log besides the default display of the values of that key.

Regscanner advanced Registry search

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:16:05 +0000

It’s kinda funny. I was prepared to write about Regscanner all day long when I discovered that Kevin over at Lifehacker did post about the Nirsoft utility as well. If you have ever used the Windows Registry Editor before you might have asked yourself why Microsoft did not implement a better search in the tool, they surely should have had enough time to do so in the past years. If you perform a search in Regedit you jump from one entry to the next like the search in text applications. A far better solution for Regedit however would be to display all search results at once which would give the user more control.

Regscanner is the usual high quality Nirsoft application. You can run it from any location without installation it and it works right out of the box. The Regscanner search form might look a bit intimidating but it is actually providing some much needed functions. It offers all the search functionality of Regedit plus the following advanced options:

Case Sensitive Search
Searching for Unicode String in Binary Value
Exact Matches plus five additional criterias for matching strings.
Display keys that have been modified in a time range
Display data of a certain size (in bytes)
Display only values of a certain type (like DWORD)
Scan one, several or all Registry base keys

A double-click on an entry opens the selected key in Regedit. Results can be exported as .reg files which can be imported into Regedit.