If you don't want to wait hours for the backup to be saved, if you don't want to waste a lot of megabytes for the backup and don't want to replace stuff in the exported file, and if you wanna play it safe, you can use many free tools to load registry hives....
In order to backup or export everything you need to get your hands on the registry settings in both HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE. Although HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE isn't really needed since this only stores the global settings which are also set when you install Messenger Plus! Live. I only mention instructions here for completeness sake.
Anyways,
in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 the system registry is stored in the following files:
NTUSER.DAT : contains the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive
SAM : contains the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE\SAM hive
SOFTWARE : contains the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE\SOFTWARE hive
SECURITY : contains the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE\SECURITY hive
SYSTEM : contains all other subhives of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIVE
NTUSER.DAT is located in the
\Documents and Settings\<username> folder.
The other files are located in the
\Windows\system32\config folder.
Sometimes, you can also find copies of registry files in the
\Windows\repair folder.
But do remember that many if not all of these files are hidden. So in order to see them you need to enable View Hidden and System files in Windows Explorer.
Also, the hive files from your currently logged on Windows account are locked for reading and writing.
Tools to open these hive files can be found on the internet using
Google or other search engine (search for "read registry hive").
eg:
MiTeC Windows Registry Recovery
- the round download button is on the right top side.
- program is completely free
- no installation is required; just unzip the file and run the one file
instructions
get Messenger Plus! registry setting from
HKEY_CURRENT_USER:
1) Open up "
\Documents and Settings\<username>\ntuser.dat"
2) Click on the last button in the right side menu named "
Raw Data"
3) Now navigate in the left pane to "
Software\Patchou\Messenger Plus! Live"
4) Click on first button in the right side menu "
Export to REGEDIT4 format"
5) Choose the key prefix "
HKEY_CURRENT_USER"
6) Select "
Only selected key" and "
Cut off root key name"
8) Press "
OK", enter the desired filename
9) Wait until the export is finished (this can take a while!)
get Messenger Plus! registry setting from
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:
1) Open up "
\Windows\system32\config\SOFTWARE."
2) Click on the last button in the right side menu named "
Raw Data"
3) Now navigate in the left pane to "
Patchou\Messenger Plus! Live"
4) Click on first button in the right side menu "
Export to REGEDIT4 format"
5) Choose the key prefix "
HKEY_CURRENT_USER"
6) Select "
Only selected key" and "
Cut off root key name"
8) Press "
OK", enter the desired filename
9) Wait until the export is finished (this can take a while!)
Now you have REG files with all the registry settings from Messenger Plus! Live.
PS: if you get an "out of memory" error, start the process over again but this time do it subkey by subkey.
This means in step 3, navigate further to a subkey instead of just to the main "Messenger Plus! Live" key. Afterwards repeat everything with the next subkey under "Messenger Plus! Live". Of course, don't forget to name each exported REG file differently.
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Note: For whatever method you use, remember that some registry settings can include path and file names!!!
So, if you import these registry files again without modifying these REG files first, you could end up with wrong Plus!-settings.
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