Without this function we’d have been stuck trying to run regedit.exe from a logon script or similar, which with the Group Policy Objects they were using (probably the one disabling Registry editing tools), would quite likely have been a bit of a PITA, to say the least. But never mind – it’s EM to the rescue, providing us with the ability to read the values – binary or otherwise – out of the .reg file and convert them into EM Registry actions. Clicking Import File on the first screen allows you to browse to your .reg file and select it. You can also browse Registry values from the local or remote computer, which is quite neat.
Once it’s imported the values, you can select if you actually want to create or delete the keys (a little confusing this, you have to tick the ones you want to delete and leave the ones you want to create).
We wanted to just grab the Office 2007 ones, so we will import them all (that means leaving them all unticked) and then just delete the ones we don’t need from the values it creates.
Once we click OK, we can see it create the separate actions for each key and value specified from the file.
Now we’ll tidy it up, deleting all the actions apart from the ones referencing version 12, which is the one we want, Office 2007.
And that’s that! Saved our configuration, deployed it, and just as we anticipated, the next morning we had some seriously-annoyed users on the phone, wondering why their fonts looked so big and ugly and wouldn’t change back. But it highlights another good feature of EM, one that is invaluable when it comes to tidying up years and years of logon scripts and Registry hacks that a lot of companies have cluttering their netlogon shares. And the best bit – quick and easy to import. EM FTW!