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With e.g. text compare, you can ask BC to align the comparison somewhat arbitrarily. That feature is not available with Registry compare.
One example where this can be useful is if you've installed a new version of a component and it has been given a new ID string. For example the old version could have this installer identity --
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\D1C81B87D279CC94A9E795B9832D99F8
while the new one is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\A12323509C0F52D4A93F98FD97C0BE4A
When showing only differences (the not-equal icon), with my eyes I can see that these are pretty much the same except for things like the "DisplayName" and "DisplayVersion" values -- but I can't ask BC to align the D1C8... next to the A123... value and get BC's usual excellent representation of the differences.
If the Align With (F7) option were available, it would help in these cases. (Note that it would be important to only pay attention to the displayed differences; "aligning" within the whole registry would cause there to be huge blocks of info related to all the components with IDs between those two values.)
Even more wonderful would be BC recognizing that really the main "change" here is of those values -- that this change is what causes the whole hierarchy to seem to be different -- and having it show them next to each other by itself. That's probably a fantasy request, but having Align With would let me do it myself.
Thanks for listening.
One example where this can be useful is if you've installed a new version of a component and it has been given a new ID string. For example the old version could have this installer identity --
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\D1C81B87D279CC94A9E795B9832D99F8
while the new one is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\A12323509C0F52D4A93F98FD97C0BE4A
When showing only differences (the not-equal icon), with my eyes I can see that these are pretty much the same except for things like the "DisplayName" and "DisplayVersion" values -- but I can't ask BC to align the D1C8... next to the A123... value and get BC's usual excellent representation of the differences.
If the Align With (F7) option were available, it would help in these cases. (Note that it would be important to only pay attention to the displayed differences; "aligning" within the whole registry would cause there to be huge blocks of info related to all the components with IDs between those two values.)
Even more wonderful would be BC recognizing that really the main "change" here is of those values -- that this change is what causes the whole hierarchy to seem to be different -- and having it show them next to each other by itself. That's probably a fantasy request, but having Align With would let me do it myself.
Thanks for listening.
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