Windows Registry is the database used to store configurations, settings and options for Microsoft Windows systems. The database has a hierarchical structure.

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.

Windows registry also offers a way to access counters to profile performance of the system.

At the time registry was first coupled with Windows 3.1, its main aim was to store information on configuration of components based on COM.

The use of registry was inflated with the launch of Windows 95 and Windows NT so as to organize the surplus of INI files per program, which had been used earlier to amass settings of configuration for Windows programs.

Keys and values are the two basic components of the Registry.

Registry Values refer to the pairs of name/data stored within the keys.

The Windows API functions, querying and manipulating values of registry, get value names in a different way from the key path. They may also use handle which identify 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.

These terms are an archive from 16-bit registry in Windows

Theres provision for manually editing registry in MS Windows by carrying out the execution of regedt32.exe and regedit.exe in Windows directories.

Although, neglectfully editing the registry can result in irreparable damage or you end up with a slow Vista. Therefore, Microsoft and several industry experts, including the writers and editors of leading trade magazines, have highly recommended to perform backups of the registry prior to editing it.

A direct implementation of the current registry tool was seen in Windows 3.x, known as the “Registration Editor” or “Registration Info Editor”.

It was mainly only an applications database that facilitates editing embedded OLE objects.

But the users need to be cautious as the two editors on the aforementioned platforms differ tremendously.

For the first time, the two programs were merged into one by Windows XP, which adopted the traditional REGEDIT.EXE as interface and added to it the functionality of REGEDT32.EXE.

With REGEDIT.EXE being the enhanced editor and the other one, i.e. REGEDT32.EXE, invoking the former one, there doesnt seem any difference on the newer operating systems including Windows XP.

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
• Setting permissions based on ACLs (Windows NT-based systems only)
• Loading, manipulating and unloading registry hive format files (Windows NT-based systems only)
• Remotely editing the registry on another networked computer

Registry editing in Linux is also possible by making use of Offline NT Password and Registry Editor for editing files.