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Regedit.exe Cannot Search for DWORD or Binary Data

Article ID: 161678

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

APPLIES TO

This article was previously published under Q161678

SUMMARY

The Find tool in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) searches for string values only. It is not able to locate data contained in a DWORD or Binary value.

To search for data contained in a DWORD or Binary value, you must first export the branch you want to search to a text file. Then, open the file in a text editor and use the editor's search tool to find the data.

NOTE: Regedit.exe is included with Windows NT 4.0 in addition to Regedt32.exe. The Windows NT version of Regedit.exe is identical to the version in Windows 95.

MORE INFORMATION

To search for DWORD data (such as "0x1234abcd") or Binary data (such as "12 34 ab cd") using this technique, follow these steps:
  1. Start Regedit.exe and click the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch.
  2. On the Registry menu, click Export Registry File.
  3. Type an arbitrary file name (for example, Hkey_lm.txt), and then verify that Save As Type is set to Registration Files and that Export Range is set to Selected Branch. Click Save.

    NOTE: Setting Export Range to All exports the entire registry to a text file, not just the selected branch.
  4. Locate the text file and open it with any text editor (such as Notepad).
  5. Use the text editor's search feature to find the data. The format of the text string depends on the data type (DWORD or Binary). For example, the sample binary value "12 34 ab cd" appears as "hex:12,34,ab,cd" and the sample DWORD value "0x1234abcd" appears as "dword:1234abcd."

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