Knowing all about the Registry in 2min

The Registry is organized into five major sections, called hives. Each hive is stored in its own system file on your PC’s hard disk. These hives include the following: • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Contains information about registered appli- cations, including file associations and OLE object classes. (This hive displays the same settings as the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Classes key.) • HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This hive is a subset of the HKEY_USERS hive, pertaining to the current user of the PC. It contains all attrib- utes for the desktop environment and network connections. • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Contains most of the settings for your PC’s hardware, system software, and individual applications. • HKEY_USERS. Contains subkeys corresponding to the HKEY_CURRENT_ USER hives for all users of the PC, not just the current user. • HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG. Contains information gathered when Windows first launches, such as settings pertaining to your PC’s dis- play and printers. The data stored in this hive is not permanently stored on disk, but rather is regenerated each time your PC boots.