Utilities
Registry
RegShot
Regshot is a small, free and open-source registry compare utility that allows you to quickly take a snapshot of your registry and then compare it with a second one - done after doing system changes or installing a new software product. The changes report can be produced in text or HTML format and contains a list of all modifications that have taken place between the two snapshots. In addition, you can also specify folders (with subfolders) to be scanned for changes as well.
Download RegShot
RegMerge
With RegMerge you load up one or more .REG files and compare them to your current registry, allowing you to selectively import parts, or just see the changes. This is useful for REG file fixes you find on the internet, or comparing your registry with another PC or your own PC in an earlier state.
Note: This utility is for PC technicians and advanced power users.
Download RegMerge
DriveCleanup
DriveCleanup removes all currently non present 'Storage Volumes', 'Disk', 'CDROM', 'Floppy' USB drives and their USB devices from the device tree. Furthermore it removes orphaned registry items related to these device types.
Download DriveCleanup
USB Oblivion
USB Oblivion utility designed to erase all traces of USB-connected drives and CD-ROMs from the registry in Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7 32/64-bit versions. The utility has a test mode of operation, i.e. without actually removing data from the registry, and, just in case, creates a .reg-file to undo any changes. There is also a fully automatic mode.
Download USB Oblivion
YARU
YARU is a minimal version of a registry viewer compared to the many others that are freely available on the Internet. YARU was designed to try to parse (on a best effort basis) the Windows registry hives and display the results in a tree view GUI. Inspired by the desire to look into the Windows registry metadata so as to better forensically analyze the registry hives, yaru was designed with a portable and extensible architecture in mind so that it could be compiled to run on various operating systems.
Download YARU
HiveDefrag
HiveDefrag is a powerful utility that defragments your registry which increases system performance. The registry can become fragmented in two different ways, 1) the files on disk can become fragmented and 2) the internal structure of the hives can become fragmented. SysInternals tool PageDefrag only deals with the first form of fragmentation, whereas HiveDefrag deals with the second. As it turns out, defragmenting the registry files has little if any improvement on system performance, but defragmenting the registry hives does improve the system performance. The more the machine has been used since Windows was installed, the more fragmented the registry will be, the more improvement you will get from this program.
Download HiveDefrag
TrackWinstall
TrackWinstall is a free tool that informs you about the changes a setup program made to your Windows installation. It shows you what files where added or removed and which files were changed by the setup program. It also lists all Registry changes.
TrackWinstall uses the differential method, i.e. it compares the system states before and after the installation. However, it doesn't create an MSI installation package. You'll get an activity protocol instead. This is can be useful if there are conflicts between applications or if you want your packager to create a usable setup file.
The programmer's description on the homepage is in German. If you start TrackWinstall on an English Windows, it opens with an English-user interface. The help file is in English, too.
Download TrackWinstall
Bytessence RegistryCleaner
Bytessence RegistryCleaner is a freeware tool designed to clean and optimize the Windows registry.
Download Bytessence RegistryCleaner
HiveLoader
HiveLoader is a powerful system tool that allows you to load and unload registry hives as well as create new registry hives. If you do not know what a registry hive is then this program is not for you!
Download HiveLoader
RegFromApp
RegFromApp monitors the Registry changes made by the application that you selected, and creates a standard RegEdit registration file (.reg) that contains all the Registry changes made by the application. You can use the generated .reg file to import these changes with RegEdit when it's needed.
Download RegFromApp
RegDllView
RegDllView is a small utility that displays the list of all registered dll/ocx/exe files (COM registration). For each registered file, you can view the last date/time that it was registered, and the list of all registration entries (CLSID/ProgID).
Download RegDllView
RegScanner
RegScanner is a small utility that allows you to scan the Registry, find the desired Registry values that match to the specified search criteria, and display them in one list. After finding the Registry values, you can easily jump to the right value in RegEdit, simply by double-clicking the desired Registry item. You can also export the found Registry values into a .reg file that can be used in RegEdit.
Download RegScanner