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Understanding and Editing the Windows Registry
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How is the Registry edited?
Create a Shortcut to Regedit
Using Regedit to modify your Registry
Backing up and restoring the Registry
Importing and Exporting Registry Settings
Cleaning out old data from the Registry
What is the Windows Registry?
The Windows Registry is a database used to store settings and options for the 32-bit
versions of Microsoft Windows. It contains information and settings for the PC
hardware, software, users, and preferences. All system changes, like changing the screen
saver, adding a sound card, and the installation and removal of 32-bit software, are
stored in the Registry.
Where is the Registry?
The physical files that make up the Windows 95 & 98 Registries are stored in two
hidden files in your Windows directory, called USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT. More
information on the user.dat and system.dat can be found on our Resetting
the Registry page.
How is the Registry edited?
The Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE) is included with Windows, but you won't find it on the
Start Menu. Regedit enables you to view, search and edit the data within the Registry.
While there are several methods for starting the Registry Editor, the simplest is to click
Start, Run, and type regedit. You should see something
like the image below.
Note: it is always a good idea to backup your Registry (see below) before making any changes to it. It can be intimidating to a new user and there is always the possibility of changing or deleting a vitual setting, which can cause registry corruption and force a reinstall of the whole operating system. It's much better to be safe than sorry!
The Registry structure
The Registry has a hierarchal structure, like the directory structure on your hard disk,
with Regedit being similar to Windows Explorer. Each main branch (denoted by a folder icon
in the Registry Editor, see below) is called a Hive, and Hives contains Keys.
Each key can contain other keys (sometimes referred to as sub-keys) as well as Values.
The values contain the actual information stored in the Registry. There are three types of
values; String, Binary, and DWORD - the use of these depends upon the
context. There are six main branches, each containing a specific portion of the
information stored in the Registry:
Backing
up and restoring the Registry
Windows 98 comes with a Registry Checker. This utility will
scan your Registry and look for old, out-dated or corrupt Registry entries.
Once the scan is done,
Registry Checker will automatically backup your Registry. Registry Checker
can be run from the command prompt by typing scanreg if
you are unable to get to Windows.
Windows 95: Microsoft included a utility on the Windows 95 CD-ROM that
lets you create backups of the Registry on your computer. The Microsoft Configuration
Backup program, cfgback.exe, is not installed by default, but it can be
found in the \Other\Misc\Cfgback directory on the Windows 95 CD-ROM. This utility
lets you create up to nine different backup copies of the Registry. These backups will be
stored in your {Windows} directory with the extension RBK. cfgback.exe
won't back up the USER.DAT file if your system is set up for multiple users.
You can copy the RBK file onto a floppy diskafter you have backed up your Registry.
However, to restore from a backup, the RBK file must reside in the \Windows directory.
Windows 95 stores the backups in compressed form, which you can then restore only by using
the CFGBACK.EXE utility.
Importing and Exporting Registry Settings
A useful feature of the Registry Editor is the ability to import and export Registry
settings to a text file. this file, with the REG extension, can then be saved or shared
with other people to easily modify local registry settings. To test this, start the
Registry Editor and "drill" down until you get to some sub-keys. Click Registry,
Export Registry File..., choose a filename, select the Selected branch
button, and save. The file should be saved in the My Documents
folder by default, but you can save it wherever you want. To view the file after you've
saved it, find the file, right-click on it, and choose Edit. this should
open the file in Notepad, and you should see someting like the following:
REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans\0001\Ndi] "DeviceID"="MSTCP" "MaxInstance"="8" "NdiInstaller"="mstcp.dll,TcpNdiProc" "HelpText"="TCP/IP is the protocol you use to connect to the Internet and wide-area networks." "InstallInf"=""
The layout is quite simple, REGEDIT4 indicated the file
type, [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\...] indicated the key the values are from. Lines
like "MaxInstance"="8"
are the values themselves. The information after the "=" will vary depending on
the type of value it is; String, Binary, or DWORD.
Using Notepad, you can edit this file to make the changes you want, then it can easily be
distributed. To add the file to a machine's Registry, double-click on it or choose Import
from the Registry menu.
Cleaning out old
data from the Registry
As mentioned before, Windows 98 includes a utility called Registry Checker that will scan
and backup Registry files. Refer back to the Backing up and
Restoring the Registry section for details.
Microsoft provides a tool for Windows 95 that will scan the Registry and look for old
files, The program, RegClean, analyzes the Windows Registry and finds keys that contain
erroneous values. After recording those entries in the Undo.Reg file, it removes them from
the Windows Registry. This utility is not included in the Windows 95 CD, but you can
download this free utility from our downloads page.
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