Registry Editor - Edit Menu

Edit Menu: The Edit menu in RegEdit provides the commands you need to create new Registry keys and to edit and delete existing keys and values. All of this functionality is also available by right-clicking in RegEdit as well.

In the Edit menu you can also set access permissions for the Registry. This can be useful if you need to manage the Registry files for other users on the PC, but find that file access is blocked when you do so.

Registry Editor File Menu

File Menu: There is a standard menu at the top left of the Registry Editor window with File, Edit, View, Favorites, and Help options. The File Menu contains the Import and Export controls and you can use these to back up and restore individual keys, settings for whole applications or devices, or the entire Registry.

Backups of the Registry are saved with the registration file (.reg) extension, which are plain text and can be opened with Notepad, as shown in Figure 2-3. This means that it is always advisable to store your .reg backup files in a secure and encrypted location, as any plain-text file in the workplace that might be susceptible to theft by an individual or through the use of malware might reveal sensitive data, such as domain information, that you would not wish revealed.

Registry Editor Operations

RegEdit: The most logical place to start is Windows’s built-in Registry Editor, RegEdit. You can find this by searching for Regedit.exe in the Start menu or at the Start screen; it will require elevated administrator privileges to run.

The built-in Registry Editor is a fairly basic editing and viewing app for the Registry, but then it doesn’t have to do much. For the majority of the time all you will need to do with the Registry is back up and reimport Registry files, and view, create, modify, and delete individual keys and values. 

SubKeys of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE : This key also contains the files COMPONENTS and BCD, which can be found in the%systemroot%\System 32\Config\ folder, and which contain information specific to the PC’s boot configuration data.

A few of the subkeys in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section are worthy of note, because this collection of Registry files is most commonly modified and edited by users.

Registry Keys and Values - Part 2

Registry keys are containers that will contain values for software, hardware or the Windows OS itself. Keys can be thought of as folders, in which the values are individual files, follow Registry Keys and Values - Part 1 to know about Keys.

You can navigate the keys using a folder-type hierarchy. Values are the nuts and bolts of the Registry. These are the settings, integers, and strings that provide the data and information that helps Windows load and effectively work with your hardware and apps.

Registry Keys and Values - Part 1

The Registry, when viewed in its entirety, is split into five main sections, or groups. This helps organize the different keys and folder in the Registry to make them easily navigable.

1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR):

This section stores information about registered applications, OLE Object Class IDs, and file associations. Sometimes you may see it abbreviated to HKCR. Should a subkey be added that duplicates a key that already exists in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes, Windows will use the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes key as its master.

What is the Windows Registry - Introduction

Every program and hardware driver had its own .ini file, which was a plain ASCII text document, and each one needed configuring individually for each individual PC. This is because there were always minor differences between PCs, such as different drive letter or serial port assignments, so if you imported a .ini file from one Windows 3.1 PC to another it was unlikely to work.

The Registry was Microsoft’s answer to this chaos, and it effectively pulled all these individual .ini files together into a single, manageable database.