What Is The Windows Registry?

The Windows Registry is a database that stores operating system settings and options for 32-bit, 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, and Windows Mobile. Contains information and settings for all hardware, software, users, and computer preferences. Whenever a user makes changes to "Control Panel" settings or file associations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry. The registry is actually a large file that can store a lot of settings. This file has been around for quite some time and has had different names. The first version of Windows to use the Windows Registry to store settings was Windows 3.11, and the registry in that version of Windows was called Reg.dat. In Windows 95 and 98, the registry files are named User.dat and System.dat and are stored in the Windows directory. Windows ME named the registry files Classes.dat, User.dat, and System.dat and stored them in the Windows directory. Finally, the latest versions of Windows such as Windows NT, 2000, 2003 and XP store registry files like this, Registry files are stored in %SystemRoot%System32Config: Sam Security Software System Default Userdiff NTUSER. dat The NTUSER.dat file is stored in the profile folder. The Windows Registry was introduced to clean up the old way of storing text entries in INI files. These entries were previously used to store configuration settings for Windows programs. Ini files were stored in many different directories, and many programs used their own ini file for some or all of their settings. This way of using ini files throughout the system made it difficult to track and manipulate them in a simple and logical way. What's good about the registry Moving from one or more INI files per program to one centralized registry has some obvious and some less obvious advantages: The registry keeps the computer's configuration separate from the user's configuration. When a user logs on to a Windows NT/XP/2003 computer, their registry settings are merged with system-wide settings. This allows programs to more easily maintain per-user configuration, as they can only work with the "current user" key, whereas in the past they tended to only store per-program settings system-wide. However, there are always some system-wide settings that are common to all users. Group Policy allows administrators on a Windows computer network to centrally manage program and policy settings. This is not used in a home environment, only in corporations with a dedicated login server. Because the registry is accessed through a special API, it is available for scripting and remote management using WMI. Each script may not be tailored for the unique layouts and constraints of each application's configuration files. The registry can be accessed as a single entry over a network connection for remote administration/support, including from scripts, using a standard API. It can be backed up more easily because it is only a small number of files in specific locations. Bad things about the registry All that glitters is not gold. The registry also presents some problems: It's a single point of failure—corruption of the registry can render Windows unbootable, in extreme cases to the point of being beyond repair and requiring a complete reinstallation of Windows. This is why it is so important to use registry scan and repair tools while the registry can still be repaired. Any program that wants to manipulate the registry must use special Windows API functions, while the configuration file can be manipulated using normal text file processing techniques. Configuration files can contain comments to help explain to the user what the values ​​are for and how they can be changed, the registry cannot. And the registry uses something called guids on a large scale. Long weird unique numbers that are completely meaningless to humans. Much harder handling. Backup is more difficult - it can't be done "live" because it's always in use and therefore requires special software like ntbackup. Restoring parts of the registry is difficult because you can't easily extract data from backed up registry files. Any application that doesn't uninstall properly or doesn't have an uninstaller can leave entries in the registry, which can lead to larger file sizes and reduced performance over time. And once again, here's the main reason why you need to use registry scanning/cleaning and repair software. The registry will be overhauled again with the release of the new Vista operating system from Microsoft.