Search & Replace

Registrar Lite offers a fast and  convenient way to search the registry or a specified key for text occurrences. Matching items can optionally be replaced with other text or deleted.

Searching the entire registry

To search the entire registry, select Search from the main menu. Make sure the Search In line is blank or writes the word Registry. Rootkeys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS will be entirely searched. Note that there is no need to search the other registry rootkeys for they are symbolic links which are pointing to existing subkeys of either HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_USERS. 

Searching a specific registry key

To search a specific registry key, ensure that the registry key is selected in the editor and choose Search from the popup menu that appears when you right click on the key. Otherwise, you have the possibility to type in or select your registry key as soon as the dialog appears.

You can select whether or not to search key names, value names or value data. 

Searching for text

If you wish to search the registry for a certain text occurrence, type in the search text you want the registry to be scanned for.  Optionally you can have environment strings expanded. This means that environment variables will be expanded before they are being searched. For instance, if your Windows directory is c:\windows then also occurrences of %systemroot will be reported as found matched. For more information on environment variables refer to the Windows documentation on this topic (choose Start button, Help and type in environment variables).

Note that if no text is specified, all existing keys and values will be reported as matches but the search process will run much slower.

Starting the search

When all the options are set, choose Start to start searching. All matches will be reported in the results view. 

Replacing text matches

Registrar offers functionality to replace text occurrence with other text. To do so, click the Replace button after selecting one or more matching keys or values in the view. To select multiple matches hold down the CTRL key down while selecting them. You will be presented with a dialog which prompts for a replacement text string and asks whether you want to really replace all matching values, value names and key names.

Deleting matching keys or values

Registrar allows you to destroy all matching items. To do so, select the matches you wish to be deleted and select Delete from the popup menu that appears when you right-click on them.