On a Windows PC, many of the system settings are saved in a huge database called Windows Registry or simply Registry. The Windows Registry is kept in several files on the system drive. Windows also provides a simple tool called the Registry Editor to edit the entries in the Windows Registry.
One of the cool features of the Registry Editor is that we can export sections of the Registry or a few entries in .REG files. We can later double-click on these .REG files to merge these entries back into the Registry. But sometimes, when we download the REG files from the Internet, they might contain undesired or malicious entries.
With the help of a freeware tool called RegMerge, we can examine the REG script before actually merging the entries into the system Registry. We can also compare the values in the REG script and those in the system Registry.
We can use RegMerge in two ways – launch it and then load the REG script, or associate the RegMerge application with the .REG file format. In the second method, we can simply double-click on the REG files and they will be loaded in RegMerge.
Once a REG script is loaded, you can examine it in its window safely. It will show you all the entries in a list. For each of the entries, it shows the base hive, the key, value name, value data, value type, REG file data, and current hive data. It also displays the comparison status between the values of the REG file and the Registry data. This comparison status can be changed, invert, or missing.
Once you are satisfied with the values in the REG script, you can select the values to be merged. For starting the value merger, we can finally click on the button labeled Merge checked changes into registry.
For associating the REG files with RegMerge application, you can launch it and then select the Settings menu. After this, you can select Set RegMerge as .REG file handler. Similarly, you can deassociate it from the .REG files.
You can download RegMerge from https://bitsum.com/regmerge/.