Here's our Windows NT Tip for.. September 18, 1997
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Backing up the NT Registry
Backing up the Registry is a simple matter in Windows 95, it's comprised of two files, SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT, both located in the \Windows folder. There's even tools to automate this chore, like the Configuration Backup Utility, which is included on the Win95 CD. But no such files or backup utilities exist in Windows NT 4.0. So where is it?

The NT 4.0 Registry is located in the \WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG folder. In fact, it's the WHOLE folder. Backing this folder up isn't exactly straightforward either, since you can't do it while running NT. You'll get a "Sharing Violation" error if you try since it's constantly in use (See image below). However, you can easily backup this folder in DOS or in Windows 95. Simply locate this folder and copy it to a new location. That's COPY, not MOVE. This is a fairly easy task in DOS too since all of the files in this folder use conventional (DOS 8.3) short file names.