About the Windows Registry | Search for a title, author or keyword | ||||||||
About the Windows Registry The registry is a system-defined database in which applications and system components store and retrieve configuration data. The data stored in the registry varies according to the version of Microsoft Windows. Applications use the registry API to retrieve, modify, or delete registry data. You should not edit registry data that does not belong to your application unless it is absolutely necessary. If there is an error in the registry, your system may not function properly. If this happens, you can restore the registry to the state it was in when you last started the computer successfully. The data in the registry is structured in a tree format. Each node in the tree is called a key. Each key can contain both subkeys and data entries called values. Sometimes, the presence of a key is all the data that an application requires; other times, an application opens a key and uses the values associated with the key. A key can have any number of values, and the values can be in any form. For example, the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key has the following subkeys: HARDWARE, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, and SYSTEM. Each of these keys in turn has subkeys. For example, the HARDWARE key has the subkeys DESCRIPTION, DEVICEMAP, and RESOURCEMAP; the DEVICEMAP key has several subkeys including VIDEO. MaxObjectNumber and VgaCompatible are values that contain data under the VIDEO subkey. A registry tree can be 512 levels deep. You can create up to 32 levels at a time through a single registry API call.
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