Editing the Registry Hive For Your Image on the Target Device

  • Article

You can view and edit the registry hive for your image on your device, before or after you run FBA. The registry files are located in the \WINDOWS\system32\config folder of your target device.

For example, C:\WINDOWS\system32\config.

Before you run FBA, registry files have a .SAV extension. The following list shows the registry hives with the extension:

  • SAM.SAV
  • SECURITY.SAV
  • SOFTWARE.SAV
  • SYSTEM.SAV

When FBA completes, the registry files are saved without the .SAV extension. The following list shows the registry hives without the extension:

  • SAM
  • SECURITY
  • SOFTWARE
  • SYSTEM

For more information about registry hives, see this Microsoft Web site.

To edit the registry of your target device

  1. Boot Windows PE on the device.

  2. At the command prompt, type regedit.

  3. Click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

  4. From the File menu, choose Load Hive.

    A series of message boxes may appear that state that the folder cannot be found and that the location is unavailable. Ignore these messages and click OK when they appear.

    The Load Hive dialog box appears.

  5. In the Files of type box, select All Files.

  6. Navigate to the registry location on your target device.

    For example, if your image is on drive C, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32\config.

  7. In the config folder, select the hive you want to edit and then choose OK.

  8. In the Load Hive dialog box type a Key Name. For example, TEST_DEVICE.

    To load more hives, repeat the previous steps.

  9. Choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and then choose the new reg key(s) you created.

  10. Edit or view the reg keys.

  11. When you have completed your reg key changes, choose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, choose the File menu, and then choose Unload Hive.

See Also

First Boot Agent | View FBA Phase Numbers and Processing Order | Windows Preinstallation Environment

Last updated on Wednesday, October 18, 2006

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.