Windows 7 DVD boot - Registry change not saved

Question

I am trying this out in Windows 7 Virtual Machine

1. Windows 7 64 is already installed in VM
2. Boot the PC using Windows 7 DVD
3. Go to Repair Your Computer - Command Prompt - Windows directory on the drive
4. Run Regedit.exe and create a key called say Test and set some string value to a value named say Val1 under say HKLM\Software (see the snapshot)
5. Exit and restart

Now when you boot using the Windows 7 DVD again and access the registry, that key and entry does not exist.

What am I missing here? Can someone help. Does it have something to do with permissions?

Answer 1

It's because in that scenario, you're editing the registry for the loaded Win PE environment you're (temporarily) booted into, not the offline one on the hard disk.

In RegEdit choose File -> Load Hive to load the offline registry hive file you want to make changes to.

i.e.:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM > c:\windows\system32\config\SAM
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM > c:\windows\system32\config\system
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE > c:\windows\system32\config\software
HKEY_USERS\.Default > c:\windows\system32\config\default
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > c:\users\<user name>\ntuser.dat