The Windows Registry – The Headquarters of Your Operating System
The registry is where virtually every preference that runs your Windows operating system as well as the preferences of most of the application software is stored. Lately, to embrace portability, software store their preferences in an INI file instead. It is virtually the ‘headquarters’ of a PC and controls virtually all functions of your computer. It’s pretty much ‘under the hood’ and usually most computer users wouldn’t even know it exists, it is more suited towards a more savvy computer audience and computer professionals.
Looking at it, your first impression would be probably to just hit the close button as fast as you can (if you are not the curious kind) as it looks like a series of thousands of directories with random complicated names. However if you look closely they are actually categorized and organized, the ‘directories’ are actually keys, the entries in the keys are known as values and the data stored in the values (usually a preference) is well, known as data. On the left, they are arranged hierarchically with the main keys starting with ‘hkey’, each of these names are distinct categories where different types of data are stored. Looking at it more closely:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT – stores more general data like the file type associations with respective software in the system
HKEY_CURRENT_USER – This stores all settings that apply to only the user currently logged onto the system
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – This main key stores keys, values and data on a more global level, which affect all users of the system.
HKEY_USERS – as the name suggests, stores information regarding the users of the system
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG – stores data regarding the current system configuration. These are core settings that apply to all operating systems and usually system preferences that are not normally tampered with.
A word of advice, make sure you don’t make ANY changes to the registry or without knowing exactly what you are doing, it could cause a lot more damage than you think. The upside of this is knowing your way round the registry can allow you to make various optimizations and enhancements to your system to cater to your usage which you don’t usually have the liberty of choosing from.
There’s nothing like trying it out though, so as long as you backup the registry before making any changes you are good to go.
How do you backup the registry?
To backup the registry Open File>Export, select the export range to “All” and save the backup in a safe location on your hard drive. It is also a wise option to periodically make backups even if you are not looking to manually make changes as modifications by any malware or software maybe made that can damage the system and thus can always be restored with a backup at your disposal.
How do you restore the backup?
In case you screw up trying to modify the registry or any malware or faulty application does so, you could always restore a backup, Open File>Import, go to the location where the backup was saved and restore the backup.
While these modifications can immensely help optimize and tweak your system, in recent times they’ve been of more use to developers of malicious software than anyone else, the popular inaccessibility with your folder options, task manager, control panel, etc. is all done using the registry.
If you are looking to make registry tweaks without getting your hands dirty this way there are in fact several freeware and shareware products that perform numerous registry tweaks with just a click of a button.
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