At the end of another busy week, and after passing the AZ-801 exam two days ago, it’s time for a small blog post 🙂 I had to export a registry from a client on which regedit tools were blocked. Exporting using PowerShell is an option, but the format isn’t that great by default. In this blog post, I will show you how to export it to a friendly format.
How the script works
After starting the PowerShell function, you can export a certain piece of your registry by running Export-Registry and specifying the path to start from by using the -Path parameter. You can save the results by using the -Outfile parameter in which you can specify a .csv or .xlsx filename, the results will contain the key, property, and value and what type (String, DWORD, etc.) the value is.
Example
In the example below, I specified HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall as the path and d:\temp\results.xlsx as the output file:
Export-Registry -Path 'HKLM:Software\microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall' -Outfile d:\temp\results.csv
The output looks like this:

The script
The script is listed below, copy/paste it to c:\scripts\Export-Registry.ps1 for example and run it in your session by using “. c:\scripts\Export-Registry.ps1”
function Export-Registry { param ( [parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = "Enter the path to start from, for example HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Policies")][string]$Path, [parameter(Mandatory = $true)][string]$Outfile ) #Test if $Path is accessible if (Test-Path $path -ErrorAction stop) { Write-Host ("Path {0} is valid, continuing..." -f $Path) -ForegroundColor Green } else { Write-Warning ("Could not access path {0}, check syntax and permissions. Exiting..." -f $path) return } #Check file extension, if it's not .csv or .xlsx exit if (-not ($Outfile.EndsWith('.csv') -or $Outfile.EndsWith('.xlsx'))) { Write-Warning ("The specified {0} output file should use the .csv or .xlsx extension, exiting..." -f $Outfile) return } #Set $keys variable Write-Host ("Retrieving keys from {0}" -f $Path) -ForegroundColor Green $keys = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue $total = foreach ($key in $keys) { foreach ($property in $key) { Write-Host ("Processing {0}" -f $property) -ForegroundColor Green foreach ($name in $key.Property) { try { [PSCustomObject]@{ Name = $property.Name Property = "$($name)" Value = Get-ItemPropertyValue -Path $key.PSPath -Name $name Type = $key.GetValueKind($name) } } catch { Write-Warning ("Error processing {0} in {1}" -f $property, $key.name) } } } } #Export results to either CSV of XLSX, install ImportExcel module if needed if ($Outfile.EndsWith('.csv')) { try { New-Item -Path $Outfile -ItemType File -Force:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null $total | Sort-Object Name, Property | Export-Csv -Path $Outfile -Encoding UTF8 -Delimiter ';' -NoTypeInformation Write-Host ("`nExported results to {0}" -f $Outfile) -ForegroundColor Green } catch { Write-Warning ("`nCould not export results to {0}, check path and permissions" -f $Outfile) return } } if ($Outfile.EndsWith('.xlsx')) { try { #Test path and remove empty file afterwards because xlsx is corrupted if not New-Item -Path $Outfile -ItemType File -Force:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null Remove-Item -Path $Outfile -Force:$true -Confirm:$false | Out-Null #Install ImportExcel module if needed write-host ("Checkig if ImportExcel PowerShell module is installed...") -ForegroundColor Green if (-not (Get-Module -ListAvailable | Where-Object Name -Match ImportExcel)) { Write-Warning ("`nImportExcel PowerShell Module was not found, installing...") Install-Module ImportExcel -Scope CurrentUser -Force:$true Import-Module ImportExcel } #Export results to path $total | Sort-Object name, Property | Export-Excel -AutoSize -BoldTopRow -FreezeTopRow -AutoFilter -Path $Outfile Write-Host ("`nExported results to {0}" -f $Outfile) -ForegroundColor Green } catch { Write-Warning ("`nCould not export results to {0}, check path and permissions" -f $Outfile) return } } }
Download the script(s) from GitHub here