Chapter 1: Windows XP Registry Overview

Overview

Well, you know fairly well what I mean…

E. M. Blake
"SF story for telepathists"

This book is addressed to system administrators, technical support personnel, and advanced Windows XP users. Most of you already have at least some previous knowledge of the registry. The prototype of the modern registry existed even in Windows 3.1, and most programmers already knew what their interlocutors meant when they mentioned the registry. Registry topics became popular with the user community after the release of the Windows 95 operating system. This isn't surprising, since the registry is the most important component of any modern Windows operating system. This chapter provides a brief overview of the Windows NT/2000/XP registry, describes registry structure and data types, and also covers the methods of data storage used by the Windows XP registry. Unfortunately, the size of this book is quite limited, and doesn't allow me to provide a detailed description of the differences between Windows 95/98/ME and Windows NT/2000/XP registries. However, the main differences will be emphasized further in this book.