Where is registry stored

The registry can now be used by all programs, and it helps bring together the settings that would otherwise be scattered in many different locations across the disk. Not all programs store all their settings in the Windows registry. Each program developer can decide to use the registry for every setting, just a few settings, or no settings. Some programs store all or just some of their settings in configuration files—for example, under your Application Data folder.

But Windows itself makes extensive use of the registry. Most Windows users will never need to touch the registry. However, you can edit the registry yourself with the Registry Editor, included with Windows. It lets you click through the registry and change individual registry settings. Some things you can only achieve by hacking the registry. Other settings are available in Group Policy on Professional editions of Windows , but you can usually change them in a Home edition of Windows by tweaking the registry.

We generally recommend backing up the registry and your computer , which you should always have backups of! But if you follow legitimate instructions properly, you will not have a problem. Editing the registry is pretty simple. This gives the Registry Editor the ability to modify system settings.

Navigate to whatever key you need to modify in the left pane. To change a value, double-click it in the right pane and enter the new value. In other cases, you may need to create new keys folders.

The registry hack will tell you what you need to do. You can also edit the registry by downloading and running. You should only download and run. Better yet, you can make your own registry hack files. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 8 months ago. Active 1 month ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Stevoisiak Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. William Hilsum William Hilsum k 19 19 gold badges silver badges bronze badges.

A great resource for additional info and to support William Hilsum and grawity answers see below link: msdn. If you need to read more on this, head over to TechNet! He says: Every Windows got a registry Key which lists every hive in system. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform: the kernel, device drivers, services, SAM, user interface, and third party applications all make use of the registry.

The registry also provides a means to access counters for profiling system performance. Registry keys are similar to folders — in addition to values, each key can contain subkeys, which may contain further subkeys, and so on. Each subkey has a mandatory name, which is a non-empty string that cannot contain any backslash or null character and whose letter case is insignificant.

Like other files and services in Windows, all registry keys may be restricted by access control lists ACLs depending on user privileges, security tokens acquired by applications, or system security policies enforced by the system.

These restrictions may be predefined by the system itself, and configured by local system administrators or by domain administrators. Different users, programs, services or remote systems may only see some parts of the hierarchy or distinct hierarchies from the same root keys. The key located by HKLM is actually not stored on disk but maintained in memory by the system kernel in order to map all other subkeys.

Applications cannot create any additional subkeys. This key usually appears as empty for most users unless they are granted access by administrators of the local system or administrators of domains managing the local system.

Each SAM database contains all built-in accounts mostly group aliases and configured accounts users, groups and their aliases, including guest accounts and administrator accounts created and configured on the respective domain, for each account in that domain, it notably contains the user name which can be used to log on that domain, the internal unique user identifier in the domain, their cryptographically hashed password on that domain, the location of storage of their user registry hive, various status flags for example if the account can be enumerated and be visible in the logon prompt screen , and the list of domains including the local domain into which the account was configured.

The kernel will access it to read and enforce the security policy applicable to the current user and all applications or operations executed by this user. This key is normally only writable by users with administrative privileges on the local system. Each configured Control Set contains:. VP and General Manager, Lifewire. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn. Updated on March 19, Chris Selph. Lifewire Technology Review Board Member.

Article reviewed on Jun 12, Tweet Share Email. In This Article. When to Use Windows Registry. How to Access the Registry. How to Use the Registry. Availability in Windows. Location of the Registry. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again.