These files are database files, and only RegEdit, Regedit32 and the Kernel32 can read them. The primary tool in Windows 10/8/7 for working directly with the registry is Registry Editor. To access it, simply type Regedit in Start Menu Search Bar and hit Enter !
Where are the Windows registry files located in Windows 10
Microsoft introduced the registry back in Windows 3.1, but it was initially used only for certain types of software. In the Windows 3.1 era, Windows applications frequently stored settings in .INI configuration files that were scattered across the OS. 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.
Better yet, you can make your own registry hack files. A .reg file can contain multiple different settings, so you could create a .reg file that automatically applies all your favorite registry hacks and configuration tweaks to a Windows PC when you run it.
Read: Make Windows automatically backup Registry.To access it, simply type Regedit in Start Menu Search Bar and hit Enter.If you need to read more on this, head over to TechNet.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[728,90],'thewindowsclub_com-banner-1','ezslot_6',819,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-thewindowsclub_com-banner-1-0');UPDATE: AccidentalADMIN has made a useful comment. He says:Every Windows has a Registry Key which lists every hive in the system. Run regedit to open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key to get a complete list:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelistWhile on the topic of Registry, you might also want to see if some of these links interest you:How to browse and edit the Registry from ExplorerHow to open multiple instances of the Registry.
Prior to the Windows Registry, .INI files stored each program's settings as a text file or binary file, often located in a shared location that did not provide user-specific settings in a multi-user scenario. By contrast, the Windows Registry stores all application settings in one logical repository (but a number of discrete files) and in a standardized form. According to Microsoft, this offers several advantages over .INI files.[2][3] Since file parsing is done much more efficiently with a binary format, it may be read from or written to more quickly than a text INI file. Furthermore, strongly typed data can be stored in the registry, as opposed to the text information stored in .INI files. This is a benefit when editing keys manually using regedit.exe, the built-in Windows Registry Editor. Because user-based registry settings are loaded from a user-specific path rather than from a read-only system location, the registry allows multiple users to share the same machine, and also allows programs to work for less privileged users. Backup and restoration is also simplified as the registry can be accessed over a network connection for remote management/support, including from scripts, using the standard set of APIs, as long as the Remote Registry service is running and firewall rules permit this.
The registry contains two basic elements: keys and values. Registry keys are container objects similar to folders. Registry values are non-container objects similar to files. Keys may contain values and subkeys. Keys are referenced with a syntax similar to Windows' path names, using backslashes to indicate levels of hierarchy. Keys must have a case insensitive name without backslashes.
Like other files and services in Windows, all registry keys may be restricted by access control lists (ACLs), depending on user privileges, or on security tokens acquired by applications, or on 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 terminology is somewhat misleading, as each registry key is similar to an associative array, where standard terminology would refer to the name part of each registry value as a "key". The terms are a holdout from the 16-bit registry in Windows 3, in which registry keys could not contain arbitrary name/data pairs, but rather contained only one unnamed value (which had to be a string). In this sense, the Windows 3 registry was like a single associative array, in which the keys (in the sense of both 'registry key' and 'associative array key') formed a hierarchy, and the registry values were all strings. When the 32-bit registry was created, so was the additional capability of creating multiple named values per key, and the meanings of the names were somewhat distorted.[6] For compatibility with the previous behavior, each registry key may have a "default" value, whose name is the empty string.
The key located by HKLM is actually not stored on disk, but maintained in memory by the system kernel in order to map all the other subkeys. Applications cannot create any additional subkeys. On Windows NT, this key contains four subkeys, "SAM", "SECURITY", "SYSTEM", and "SOFTWARE", that are loaded at boot time within their respective files located in the %SystemRoot%\System32\config folder. A fifth subkey, "HARDWARE", is volatile and is created dynamically, and as such is not stored in a file (it exposes a view of all the currently detected Plug-and-Play devices). On Windows Vista and above, a sixth and seventh subkey, "COMPONENTS" and "BCD", are mapped in memory by the kernel on-demand and loaded from %SystemRoot%\system32\config\COMPONENTS or from boot configuration data, \boot\BCD on the system partition.
Even though the registry presents itself as an integrated hierarchical database, branches of the registry are actually stored in a number of disk files called hives.[17] (The word hive constitutes an in-joke.)[18]
The registry is physically stored in several files, which are generally obfuscated from the user-mode APIs used to manipulate the data inside the registry. Depending upon the version of Windows, there will be different files and different locations for these files, but they are all on the local machine. The location for system registry files in Windows NT is %SystemRoot%\System32\Config; the user-specific HKEY_CURRENT_USER user registry hive is stored in Ntuser.dat inside the user profile. There is one of these per user; if a user has a roaming profile, then this file will be copied to and from a server at logout and login respectively. A second user-specific registry file named UsrClass.dat contains COM registry entries and does not roam by default.
Windows NT systems store the registry in a binary file format which can be exported, loaded and unloaded by the Registry Editor in these operating systems. The following system registry files are stored in %SystemRoot%\System32\Config\:
Each registry data file has an associated file with a ".log" extension that acts as a transaction log that is used to ensure that any interrupted updates can be completed upon next startup.[21] Internally, Registry files are split into 4 kB "bins" that contain collections of "cells".[21]
The registry files are stored in the %WINDIR% directory under the names USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT with the addition of CLASSES.DAT in Windows ME. Also, each user profile (if profiles are enabled) has its own USER.DAT file which is located in the user's profile directory in %WINDIR%\Profiles\\.
The registry contains important configuration information for the operating system, for installed applications as well as individual settings for each user and application. A careless change to the operating system configuration in the registry could cause irreversible damage, so it is usually only installer programs which perform changes to the registry database during installation/configuration and removal. If a user wants to edit the registry manually, Microsoft recommends that a backup of the registry be performed before the change.[22] When a program is removed from control panel, it may not be completely removed and, in case of errors or glitches caused by references to missing programs, the user might have to manually check inside directories such as program files. After this, the user might need to manually remove any reference to the uninstalled program in the registry. This is usually done by using RegEdit.exe.[23] Editing the registry is sometimes necessary when working around Windows-specific issues e.g. problems when logging onto a domain can be resolved by editing the registry.[24]
.REG files (also known as Registration entries) are text-based human-readable files for exporting and importing portions of the registry using an INI-based syntax. On Windows 2000 and later, they contain the string Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 at the beginning and are Unicode-based. On Windows 9x and NT 4.0 systems, they contain the string REGEDIT4 and are ANSI-based.[26] Windows 9x format .REG files are compatible with Windows 2000 and later. The Registry Editor on Windows on these systems also supports exporting .REG files in Windows 9x/NT format. Data is stored in .REG files using the following syntax:[26]
Windows PowerShell comes with a registry provider which presents the registry as a location type similar to the file system. The same commands used to manipulate files and directories in the file system can be used to manipulate keys and values of the registry.[28]
Through PowerShell scripts files, an administrator can prepare scripts which, when executed, make changes to the registry. Such scripts can be distributed to administrators who can execute them on individual machines. The PowerShell Registry provider supports transactions, i.e. multiple changes to the registry can be bundled into a single atomic transaction. An atomic transaction ensures that either all of the changes are committed to the database, or if the script fails, none of the changes are committed to the database.[28][29] 2ff7e9595c
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