remote administration can register their own templates. Command line editing The registry can be manipulated in a number of ways from the command line. The Reg.exe and RegIni.exe utility tools are included in Windows XP and later versions of Windows. Alternative locations for legacy versions of Windows include the Resource Kit CDs or the original Installation CD of Windows. Also, a .REG file can be imported from the command line with the following command: RegEdit.exe /s file The /s means the file will be silent merged to the registry. If the /s parameter is omitted the user will be asked to confirm the operation. In Windows 98, Windows 95 and at least some configurations of Windows XP the /s switch also causes RegEdit.exe to ignore the setting in the registry that allows administrators to disable it. When using the /s switch RegEdit.exe does not return an appropriate return code if the operation fails, unlike Reg.exe which does. RegEdit.exe /e file exports the whole registry in V5 format to a UNICODE .REG file, while any of RegEdit.exe /e file HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT[\<key>] RegEdit.exe /e file HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG[\<key>] RegEdit.exe /e file HKEY_CURRENT_USER[\<key>] RegEdit.exe /e file HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE[\<key>] RegEdit.exe /e file HKEY_USERS[\<key>] export the specified (sub)key (which has to be enclosed in quotes if it contains spaces) only. RegEdit.exe /a file exports the whole registry in V4 format to an ANSI .REG file. RegEdit.exe /a file <key> exports the specified (sub)key (which has to be enclosed in quotes if it contains spaces) only. It is also possible to use Reg.exe. Here is a sample to display the value of the registry value Version: Reg.exe QUERY HKLM\Software\Microsoft\ResKit /v Version Other command line options include a VBScript or JScript together with CScript, WMI or WMIC.exe and Windows PowerShell. Registry permissions can be manipulated through the command line using RegIni.exe and the SubInACL.exe tool. For example, the permissions on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE key can be displayed using: SubInACL.exe /keyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE /display PowerShell commands and scripts Windows PowerShell comes with a registry provider which presents the registry as a location type similar to the file system. The same commands used to manipulate files and directories in the file system can be used to manipulate keys and values of the registry. Also like the file system, PowerShell uses the concept of a current location which defines the context on which commands by default operate. The Get-ChildItem (also available through the aliases ls, dir