| The first step is to create an initial copy (Snapshot) of the Registry. When you first run ART, it creates a snapshot automatically and saves the scan in its database file (ART_DB.rgf by default).
|
|
|
To do this manually, select the menu item Registry | Scan or click the Scan Registry  button on the toolbar.
|
| A scan can be done in any of three modes:
|
| 1) The whole registry.
|
| 2) A current key, defined in the current key field.
|
| 3) Using a selected filter (see Filters).
|
|
|
| Depending on the size of the Registry and your computer resources, this procedure can take only a few seconds or up to a minute. The procedure duration (in seconds) is displayed on the status bar. A copy of the Registry is displayed in a tree form of folders. The name of the scan folder is the date of the scan. A scan is called a Snapshot.
|
|
|
| NOTE: No more than two Snapshots are stored in RAM simultaneously. Snapshots that are stored in RAM are called active and their folders are green. Snapshots that are inactive are displayed in grey. For inactive Snapshots only the menu item Comment is accessible.
|
|
|
| A Snapshot must be active if you want to view, compare, search, or set its initial scanning options. To switch to active mode, you simply have to open a relevant node of the tree. The only process that will take some time is loading the data from the file into memory.
|
|
|
| If a tree has two active snapshots and you open another, then one of the previously opened snapshots will be closed in accordance with the settings in Edit | Settings | General.
|
|
|
| "Close not selected snapshot" is set by default; in this case a snapshot that remains active is the snapshot that contains the currently selected node.
|
| Selecting "Close oldest snapshot" or "Close newest snapshot" will close a snapshot with either the older or more recent date of creation.
|
| If you choose "Ask for confirmation", a dialog window appears to let you select the snapshot to be closed (switched to inactive mode).
|
| Scanning is only possible when a database file is open. The file may be either newly created (empty) or it may contain a number of scanned snapshots.
|
| Each newly scanned snapshot is saved to the database file automatically.
|
| One can change the ART data base file in Edit | Settings | General
|
|
|
| After scanning you can view the properties of any key by right-clicking the mouse on the key and selecting Properties.
|
| You can add a comment (up to 2000 characters) by right-clicking the mouse on the Snapshot node and selecting Comment.
|
| During the scan process, the machine name, the operating system and, if a part of the system is scanned, the relevant path (key name) is added to the Comment automatically.
|