Tim Chu

A: Simply rebooting several times in a single day shouldn't overwrite any of your good Registry backups-the Registry Checker Tool (scanregw.exe, ScanReg for short) that creates these backups does so only once a day, not every time you reboot. Rebooting merely causes ScanReg to analyse the Registry and, if it finds a problem, replace it with the most recent backup. The bad Registry is backed up to a special file, Rbbad.cab (for "Registry backup bad"), where it won't be used for future restoration. If both the Registry and the most recent Registry backup file are corrupt, Windows merely attempts to replace the existing Registry with this recent corrupted version.

It's a frustrating situation to be sure, but at least none of the earlier (and presumably good) backups ScanReg created get damaged or overwritten. Only Rbbad.cab would get replaced each time. Even so, you might feel safer with more than five Registry backups. You can tell ScanReg to increase the number of backups, and you don't have to modify the Registry: All the settings you need to change reside in a file called scanreg.ini, which you can modify in any text editor.

Choose StartòRun and type c:\windows\scanreg.ini (your path may differ); then press <Enter>. Scanreg.ini should open in your assigned text editor (Notepad is the default). Look for a line that reads MaxBackupCopies=5. Change the number in this line to any amount from 0 to 99. For example, if you want Windows to keep 25 copies of the Registry, edit the line so that it reads MaxBackupCopies=25.

-Scott Dunn