Retrieving Information From Win98 Registry

[owensdj]

I need to find the Quickbooks Pro 6 Installation Key from the registry of a failed Win98 machine. I have a complete copy of the hard drive from the machine. How do I get this info from the User.dat and System.dat files? Thanks.

 

[corkyg]

According yo Intuit, it should be here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Intuit/QuickBooksRegistration/15.0/pro. Look for entries with names like InstallID and LicenseNumber. LicenseNumber is your license number, and InstallID is your product ID.

I always make a copy of such keys as text files and store them in the Program File Folder.

 

[owensdj]

corkyg thanks for that info, but my main problem is that I can't look at the registry of the failed Win98 machine at all. I have the registry files(User.dat and System.dat) on a Win7 Pro machine. I need a way to browse or export those registry entries.

 

[mikeymikec]

corkyg, apparently the system won't boot, so firing up regedit on it might be difficult

I would be surprised if that registry location wasn't in system.dat.

I wonder whether you could grab system.dat, feed it to a newer Windows machine in regedit and tell it to import the hive. I'd consider doing it on a disposable Windows install or VM.

Failing that, I assume that regedit on Win9x can import from a registry hive file, so set up a VM running Win98 and give that a shot. My Win9x knowledge is understandably rusty

If you manage to import the registry hive in either case, then look for that relative location in the imported hive in regedit.

 

[owensdj]

mikeymikec I did try to set up Win98 in a virtual machine. The regedit in Win98 didn't have the ability to import a registry hive. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

[imagoon]

Should be able to use reg.exe to mount it. Granted I never tried that with a win98 hive in something newer.

Specifically "REG load, REG export, REG unload" would work. At least it does for newer registries. Just make sure not to load it over the OS registry and just give it a temp name of some sort.

 

[owensdj]

imagoon, I got it! I did a REG import system.dat and it imported the previous registry keys into a Windows XP test virtual machine I set up for this. Thanks!

 

[Dude111]

Im glad ya got things taken care of buddy!