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Share Registry Editor Favorite Keys Across Computers

If you spend a lot of time inside your registry editor, you might already know that you can use the Favorites feature to add in a bookmark to a specific key in the registry, saving you immense amounts of time when you need to check a bunch of different keys.

But did you think about exporting that list so you can use it on any computer?

Here's the menu I'm talking about:

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For instance, here I'm adding in a favorite for the local machine's Run key, used to launch applications across all users.

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Now when I use the menu item, it will navigate me instantly to that key in the registry, no matter where I currently am.

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As I added a few favorites, it occurred to me that I should figure out where those menu items are being stored…

Now browse down to this registry key to find the favorites list:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit\Favorites

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And there's the favorite we just saved… so how does this help you?

If you export this registry key onto your flash drive, you can use it to restore your favorites onto any computer that you need to work on… then you can navigate to useful keys really quickly.

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Once you save out the file, just import it into the registry on any other computer and you should have the same favorites list.

This could become an essential part of any IT toolkit.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 09/25/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, System Administration

Comments (1)

  1. Scott

    Geek, you have a great site with a lot of good info but this one is just awesome. Dont know how many years I have been hacking registry and never, I mean NEVER saw the damn favorites. I have just been exporting successful hacks and naming them very plainly.

    Thanks for the stuff that just works


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