Registry Editing to Remove Hive File

I was wondering if there was a way to make a visual basic .net application to replace the SAM file so that if a password is lost, the password could be over written with a fresh sam file.

I suppose the application would have to be ran in a PE type of environment or at least alongside the registry so that you wouldn't get any errors.

Thanks

Not sure if there's NET equivalents, but you'd use the API RegSaveKeyEx (or RegSaveKey) to back it up and RegRestoreKey to overwrite it, or alternatively RegReplaceKey to replace HKLM.