Comparing Registries

While working with changes to your system, you might want to see what is changing in your Registry.
Since you can export it to a text file, the steps are fairly easy

1. Start Regedit
2. With the very top level select - My Computer, on the Toolbar select Registry / Export Registry File
3. I usually save it to the root of the C: drive with the name before (you don't need to add an extension)
4. Make the change to your system
5. Go back to Regedit
6. Press F5 to update it
7. Export the Registry like step 2
8. Name the file after and have it go in the same directory
9. Open up a DOS window
10. Go to the directory where the two exported files are
11. Enter FC before.reg after.reg > diff.txt
12. Then you can edit diff.txt with your favorite text editor.

Note: I do the last steps so often I have a simple batch file already set up.