reading registry and HDD

[screwed over]

Im trying to read the registry and the HDD for registry keys and files at two points and then store the differences in two tables, unfortunatly, i have a minimal idea on how to read the all the registry files and HDD files (though i would appreciate any proven to work methods) but im not sure how to get the difference in the tables, any help appreciated.

[jassing]

Im trying to read the registry and the HDD for registry keys and files at two points and then store the differences in two tables, unfortunatly, i have a minimal idea on how to read the all the registry files and HDD files (though i would appreciate any proven to work methods) but im not sure how to get the difference in the tables, any help appreciated.

I'm unclear what you want....

The way I read your post:

You want to read the registry and put all the data into a table
you want to scan the drive and put all the files into a table


this would be slow & use a lot of memory, unless by table, you mean an sql table....

You would use the Registry object to read/scan the registry and File.Find to recursivly find files.

[screwed over]

pretty much, but i want to take these "snapshots" of the hdd and registry at two different points and record the differences, e.g. new files, new registry keys, changed registry keys etc. i have looked into other methods than tables for storing the data but all the others i've looked at would intefere with the process. and im aware of it being slow and memory consuming, but for what my program is i beleive it to be reasonable.

(my program is going to be a peice of software that "portablises" (in place of a better word) software when its being installed. i plan to release a demo version for free for these forums and i may sell a full product.)

[jassing]

Good luck in your venture. Making applications portable is not an easy task, especially when they rely on the registry and large data files or services (as in an application that uses mssqlserver).

You've got the tools to do what you want...

Cheers
-josh