One feature of X-Setup Pro that Network Administrators may find useful is the so called Record Mode. If this mode is activated, X-Setup Pro will record most of the system changes you make to a REG file. This file can then be transferred to a different machine and added to the registry by simply double-clicking this file, a great time-saver if you want to make the same changes to several machines.
If you apply the changes of a plugin by clicking on the "Apply changes", all changes the plugin makes are monitored and saved to an internal buffer. For example, if you start the "Super ACME Plugin", activate "Fast Gate A20 Option" and click apply, the plugin writes "FastGate=1" to the registry. Because Record Mode is currently activated, X-Setup Pro will write "FastGate=1" to its internal buffer.
As soon as you stop recording, X-Setup Pro (by de-activating record mode), will generate a Save As dialog, where you can specify a filename and destination folder. Note: X-Setup Pro will generate the file with the extension *.TXT because you should read the contents of the file before using it. After renaming it to *.REG it is ready to use.
Record Mode can save you a lot of time. For example, if you want to make changes on several machines, instead of installing X-Setup Pro on every machine and then applying the changes, you can create a single *.REG file and merge it into the registries on all machines. That way, you save a lot of time and you can be sure that all machines have been changed in the same way.
Although this is a real powerful feature, it has some drawbacks:
Only Registry changes, additions and deletions can be recorded. All other changes (INI file writing, file changes etc.) are not supported. To inform you about this, X-Setup Pro will inform you at the beginning of the file if any unsupported function was invoked, which function was invoked and what has been changed is noted later in the file.
If a X-Setup Pro plugin error occurs, the REG file might be damaged. To be absolutely sure that your REG file will not get damaged, cancel the recording as soon as an error is displayed. If you have some experience with REG files, you can ignore the error and remove the invalid command later by hand.
X-Setup Pro will write every change to the file, regardless if the command is already in the REG file or not. For example if you press "Apply changes" twice in a plugin, all commands will be doubled in the REG file. Although this will not lead to an error, please keep this in mind.
To enable Record Mode, open up the default user interface (
Classic mode) from the X-Setup Pro welcome screen. Then
open the File menu and choose 'Record Mode'. Alternatively, you can click
the Record Mode button on the Toolbar. Once Record Mode is enabled, the
Record Mode icon on the Toolbar will appear depressed.
When you want to finish recording, repeat the steps mentioned above. Note that Record Mode also works in Wizard mode as well, but you can only enable or disable it in the Classic mode.
Applying the REG file
To apply the generated REG file to a machine, do the following:
rename the file from .REG.TXT to .REG (be sure to have a look at the file first!)
copy the file to a location where the target computer(s) can access it, or onto a floppy disk (or similar)
either simply double-click the file or execute
the command:
regedit /S <file>
e.g.
regedit /S y:\soft\mysett.REG
Because Regedit has some problems with long filenames (LFN), you should
keep the name of your REG file in 8+3 form.
Note: Normally using this regedit /S command will work but it may fail if you want to change a system setting from a user account that hasn't got "Administrator" privileges on Windows 2000 or NT 4.0.
A system setting is anything in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hives in the Registry. If you system is "locked down", then this means that the current user has no rights to modify any values in these hives, and executing REGEDIT.exe will display an error message, such as "Not all values could be imported".
To solve this you can use the runas command in Windows 2000. For example:
runas /user:Administrator "regedit.exe /S c:\test.reg"
This will then ask you for an admin password, and then switch the context to ADMINISTRATOR and execute the command. As the user ADMINISTRATOR has all privileges, the command will succeed.
Please note that if you use this command to import a file that makes changes below HKEY_CURRENT_USER, it will affect the ADMINISTRATOR account, not the current user, since RUNAS performs a context switch.
More information about RUNAS in Windows 2000 can be found in the Microsoft
Knowledge base at 
support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q225/0/35.ASP.
As NT 4.0 has no RUNAS command, you will need to install a program that
is able to perform a context switch. One example is "SU" from
the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit or "NTSU" (Freeware,
search for it using Google.com).
Please see the documentation of these tools how to execute a command as
ADMINISTRATOR.
You can also change the default output folder for files you have created using Record Mode by using the Options dialog. For more information please see the Options dialog topic.
