{"id":1435,"date":"2016-01-16T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-16T11:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2019-05-12T02:56:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T02:56:19","slug":"sort-registry-editor-favorites-menu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/sort-registry-editor-favorites-menu\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Sort the Registry Editor Favorites Menu?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Favorites menu in the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) is very useful especially if you&#8217;re someone who loves playing with the Registry Editor all the time. If you&#8217;ve noticed, the favorites menu in Regedit doesn&#8217;t have an option to sort the entries alphabetically. If you have many entries in the favorites menu, finding an item from the unsorted listing is a minor inconvenience.<\/p>\n<p>Registry Editor favorites are displayed in chronological order, although the date and time stamp meta data aren&#8217;t shown in the user interface. If you export a key to a text file (instead of .reg format), the date\/time stamp in shown in that text file, and that too the <i>Last Write Time<\/i> is shown only at the &quot;key&quot; level, and not for the individual &quot;values&quot;. And in Regedit, there is no &quot;Sort by Name&quot; option, which is available in Internet Explorer Favorites menu. The Regedit favorites are stored in this registry path:<\/p>\n<pre>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Applets\\Regedit\\Favorites<\/pre>\n<p>To sort the Registry Editor Favorites alphabetically, you can use one of the following methods.<\/p>\n<h2>Export to a REG file and Sort the Values Manually<\/h2>\n<p>In Regedit.exe, export the above key to a .REG file, and then <u>delete the <b>Favorites<\/b><\/u> branch. In the exported REG file, the values are listed exactly as shown in the Favorites menu &#8211; so you need to sort it manually. Edit the REG file using Notepad and sort the values manually, save the file and double-click the file to run it. This rewrites the values, but this time adds entries in alphabetical order.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort1.png\" width=\"568\" height=\"376\"><\/p>\n<h2>Export to a REG file and Use Sort command in Command Prompt<\/h2>\n<p>After exporting the above key to a .REG file, say D:\\unsorted.reg, open a Command Prompt window and type:<\/p>\n<pre>SORT D:\\UNSORTED.REG \/O D:\\SORTED.REG<\/a><\/pre>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort7.png\" width=\"442\" height=\"157\"><\/p>\n<p>This sorts the REG file contents, including the <i>Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00<\/i> and the branch name. After sorting, open the Sorted.reg file using Notepad, and move the following header information to the top of the file.<\/p>\n<pre><code>Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00<br>\r\n[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Applets\\Regedit\\Favorites]<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Also, add the following line in the middle, which clears the existing Favorites branch in the Registry Editor. This is important.<\/p>\n<pre>[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Applets\\Regedit\\Favorites]<\/pre>\n<p>So these three lines are at the top most in the sorted.reg file:<\/p>\n<pre><code>Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00<br>\r\n[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Applets\\Regedit\\Favorites]<br>\r\n[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Applets\\Regedit\\Favorites]\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Save the file unsorted.reg, and double-click to run it. This sorts the Regedit Favorites menu.<\/p>\n<h2>Using RegScanner to get the sorted listings in a .REG file<\/h2>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nirsoft.net\/utils\/regscanner.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RegScanner<\/a> from Nirsoft is a nice utility that lets you find registry data with specified search criteria, and display them in one list. The list can be exported to a .REG file.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort4.png\" width=\"578\" height=\"477\"><\/p>\n<p>In RegScanner&#8217;s Scan Options page, type <b>regedit\\favorites<\/b> in Find String, and set it to scan only the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. When the scan results are shown, sort the results by Name column in <b><u>reverse alphabetical order<\/u><\/b>. From the File menu, click Export and save to a REG file.<\/p>\n<p><i>(For some reason, if the listing is in alphabetical order, RegScanner v 2.1.5.0 exports the values in reverse alphabetical order in the REG file, and vice-versa.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort5.png\" width=\"563\" height=\"445\"><\/p>\n<p>You get the alpha-sorted list.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort3.png\" width=\"563\" height=\"395\"><\/p>\n<p><b>Important:<\/b> Before running the REG file, the existing Favorites branch in the Registry Editor has to be <u>deleted<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p><i>(Unsorted vs. Sorted Favorites menu)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort2.png\" width=\"242\" height=\"655\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/w10\/regedit-fav-sort6.png\" width=\"241\" height=\"656\"><\/p>\n<p>You may script this task (which should be pretty easy) if you want to do the alpha-sort in a single mouse click.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Favorites menu in the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) is very useful especially if you&#8217;re someone who loves playing with the Registry Editor all the time. If you&#8217;ve noticed, the favorites menu in Regedit doesn&#8217;t have an option to sort the entries alphabetically. If you have many entries in the favorites menu, finding an item from &#8230; <a title=\"How to Sort the Registry Editor Favorites Menu?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/sort-registry-editor-favorites-menu\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about How to Sort the Registry Editor Favorites Menu?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[441],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-windows","tag-registry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":760,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/go-to-registry-key-right-click-chrome-firefox-ie\/","url_meta":{"origin":1435,"position":0},"title":"Jump to a Registry Key via Right-Click in Chrome, Firefox or IE","author":"Ramesh","date":"October 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Many of our articles contain information about modifying the registry. To quickly open the Registry Editor to a selected key from the web browser, you can browser add-ons available for Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer. Google Chrome \"Chome Registry Jumper\" extension The Chome Registry Jumper extension available at the Chrome\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"chrome open regedit extension","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/chrome-open-regedit-extension.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/chrome-open-regedit-extension.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/chrome-open-regedit-extension.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/chrome-open-regedit-extension.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":460,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/preserve-order-ie-favorites-transferring-to-another-pc\/","url_meta":{"origin":1435,"position":1},"title":"Preserve the order of Internet Explorer Favorites when transferring to another PC","author":"Ramesh","date":"August 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Favorites menu in Internet Explorer lets you arrange the shortcuts by dragging each shortcut to your preferred location within the Favorites menu. If you use the Import\/Export Wizard in Internet Explorer or manually copy the URL favorites to another system, the favorites order is not copied to the target\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Internet Explorer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Internet Explorer","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/category\/microsoft\/internet-explorer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/archived\/ie-icon.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4925,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/switch-hklm-hkcu-regedit-go-to\/","url_meta":{"origin":1435,"position":2},"title":"Switch between HKCU and HKLM quickly in Registry Editor","author":"Ramesh","date":"December 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Registry Editor in Windows 10 has a useful option that allows you to switch quickly between a registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER when an identical branch exists under both. Root keys are keys present at the root level of the registry, with their names beginning with \"HKEY\". 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