Registry Compare, Parsing Error, BC don't handle [] in key names (which is legal)

[sveinan]

Just been trying to utilize BC (Pro 3.3.3 14128) as a registry compare tool. I am very interested in using it in problem solving situations. Often I have the need to compare whole HKLM instances before/after changes has been done. Yes, I could do text compare, but it is not good enough in all cases (better with logical registry tree-view).

Problem now is that BC gets "Parsing Error" in all my test cases. Have already pinpointed what it reacts to. Hope it is not more cases, but cannot go on before this gets fixed

Short of it: BC do not handle left/right square brackets [] as part of a key (registry path) name. It is 100% legal to have, BC should support it. Following example is easy to test with:

File: test_before.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\123\456 [789] ABC]
"TestValue"="ABC"

File: test_after.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\123\456 [789] ABC]
"TestValue"="ABC changed"

The problem part is that last part of key path has this name:
» "456 [789] ABC"

I can both export and import key names with [] brackets through Windows Registry Editor. But BC, as of now, gets "Parsing Error (3:44)" on the example .reg files above.

So for now BC is not usable for me in this aspect. Is this something you could fix in a future revision of BC ? Or have I overlooked an (easy) workaround ?

Hope this can be fixed. I really need a registry tree-view compare tool, and this looks very promising

[Aaron]

Thanks for the report and sample files. I'll make a tracker entry to investigate this. In the meantime, you'll need to use our Text Compare session type to workaround this and compare your .reg files with the [names]. You can use the Session menu -> Compare Files Using, to switch between Text Compare and Registry Compare.

[sveinan]

That was quick Thanks for the reply and suggestion. For now I'll monitor future BC releases and see if problem gets solved.

BTW: Did go through my 150MB test dump of HKLM and manually remove the [] entries. There were no other logic that made problems, so with the [] eliminated BC compared 150MB of my HKLM without problems. And that 150MB is from a machine that has gone through a lot. Lots of strange registry entries

[Aaron]

Thanks for the info. We've had a few other tweaks like this since releasing our Registry Compare that help increase its compatibility. It's good to know it's handling larger and complex entries.

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