Registry for Microsoft Windows 95
The hierarchical database - Registry - for Windows stores settings and options for configuration on MS Windows operating systems.
The Windows Registry provides information about the settings for low-level operating system and applications running on the platforms. The kernel, user interface, device drivers, services, SAM and third party applications are some platforms which use the Window Registry.
The Windows Registry also enables to access counter which helps in analyzing the performance of system.
The Windows Registry was first launched in the market with Windows 3.1 to store important configuration information for COM-based components.
But the use of Windows Registry extended with the launch of Windows NT and Windows 95. It included a large number of per-program INI files wherein configuration settings for Windows had been stored.
The Windows registry has two essentials: keys and values.
Stored inside the keys are the pairs of name/data known as registry values.
Manipulation of registry values is carried out by the API functions of Windows, which access names of values discretely from their key paths and/or from Windows handle that acknowledges the parent key.
Although, the term is a little bit confusing, with values resembling associative arrays, wherein standard definition suggests that a key is the name portion of value.
Window 3s 16-bit registry presents the terms, wherein keys included merely a value that is unnamed (which required to be a string), but they couldnt have arbitrary duo of name/data.
Theres provision for manually editing registry in MS Windows by carrying out the execution of regedt32.exe and regedit.exe in Windows directories.
However, sloppy registry editing can lead to a slow PC or losses that cant be reversed. So, performing registry backups must be the priority, and the same has been advised by the software giant Microsoft and various other professionals, authors and editors of business magazines.
A direct implementation of the current registry tool was seen in Windows 3.x, known as the “Registration Editor” or “Registration Info Editor”.
This was a database of applications primarily used to edit inserted OLE objects in documents.
However, it should be remembered that both the editors have several differences.
An integrated program of these two distinct programs was firstly seen in Windows XP. The operating system embraced the REGEDIT.EXE interface and infused the REGEDT32.EXE functionality into it.
However, the distinctions do not occur with Windows XP as well as the newer versions REGEDIT.EXE being the improved editor and REGEDT32.EXE being purely a stub invoking REGEDIT.EXE.
The Registry Editor permits users to carry out functions that follow:
- Importing and exporting .REG files, exporting data in the binary hive format
- Creating, manipulating, renaming and deleting registry keys, subkeys, values and value data
- Finding particular strings in key names, value names and value data
- Bookmarking user-selected registry keys as Favorites
Registry editing in Linux is also possible by making use of Offline NT Password and Registry Editor for editing files.