Inside the registry

Posted on 24 Jan 2006 at 17:39

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The Registry is a huge database that lies at the heart of Windows controlling the settings for your programs and hardware. We'll show you how it works and how to control of it to your best advantage!

Even if you've never looked at the Registry for yourself, you will have no doubt heard it mentioned. We make constant references to it in Computer Buyer's own Ask the Expert pages - and how you can edit it to solve various problems you may be experiencing with your computer, but it can be used to great effect when it comes to customising the way in which your computer works. When reading this article, it makes sense to have the Registry open in front of you so that you can see the sections that are referred to. Click the Start button followed by Run type 'regedit' and press Enter.

What you see in front of you may well appear familiar - the structure of the Registry is very similar to the way in which folders are displayed in Windows Explorer. The Registry is divided into five main sections known as 'hives'. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT contains a great deal of information about the programs you have installed on your computer and controls which applications are used to open different types of file. As the title of HKEY_CURRENT_USER would suggest, this key contains information about the users that is currently logged in, such as their Start menu settings and individual program options.

At this point it's worth mentioning a useful security feature built into the Registry under Windows XP. Any user, no matter whether they have an Administrator or a limited account, can access the Registry. Although this sounds potentially dangerous, limited users are only able to edit certain sections of the Registry - namely those that affect their own account, or HKEY_CURRENT_USER - although they can browse around the rest to their heart's content. Administrators, on the other hand, have a completely free rein. As such, it's important to ensure that only you have an administrator account to prevent other users from making unwanted changes to your system.

One final point - if you find that you're editing the Registry quite often, it's worthwhile making a shortcut to RegEdit on the desktop, rather going to Start then Run each time you want to use it. To do this, right-click on the desktop and choose New, then Shortcut. When the dialog box appears, type in c:\windows\regedit.exe, then Next. Type a name for the shortcut (RegEdit is the obvious one) and click OK.

The Hives

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is where information is stored about your computer in general - the software is installed and the hardware that is attached. HKEY_USERS is where information about different user accounts is kept, including the settings for the default user. A raft of information is stored within HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, including details of any hardware profiles that have been set up and details of Plug and Play settings that enable Windows to detect any new hardware when it is plugged into your machine.

Users of Windows 98 and Me will also see a sixth hive named HKEY_DYN_DATA. The name is an abbreviation of 'dynamic data' and this particular section of the Registry pulls information from the other hives and stores certain information about the hardware that is currently in use.

As previously mentioned, the look of the Registry closely resembles Explorer and it can be navigated in the same way. You can double-click a folder or click the plus sign next to it to see its contents. Expanding any of the main hives will display a series of folders known as 'subkeys'. These, in turn, can contain further subkeys.