Windows is arguably the most flexible among the most popular operating systems. You can make as many adjustments to the OS as your PC can handle. For instance, the Registry Editor only requires perfunctory authorization and no serious coding or programming. Indeed, your Windows PC is your own for all intents and purposes. For instance, if I’m testing apps for Make Tech Easier, I’ll clean my registry after going through 8-10 apps in a session. Then, I don’t clean it again until I’ve tested another batch. You get to review all entries before deleting anything, giving you full control.

You can then specify access authorities on the key, as with other resources. Unhelpfully, these sections are also often referred to as hives, although they don’t perfectly correspond to the hive files on your hard disk. However, Since their names are a bit of a mouthful, they’re commonly abbreviated to HKCR, HKCU, HKLM, HKU and HKCC. Well-known file types also have a value named “Content Type” which contains an entry such as “text/plain”. This is a MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) content type value. This is not the place to go into details about MIME content types, but in essence they are the method used on the Internet to indicate what the data in a file actually is. File extensions are just a DOS/Windows thing and not universally applicable to other platforms.

How to Edit Keys or Values in Registry Editor

Many programs that you install are automatically run when you start your computer and load Windows. For the majority of cases, this type of behavior is fine. Unfortunately, there are programs that are not legitimate, such as spyware, hijackers, Trojans, worms, viruses, that load in this manner as well. It is therefore important that you check regularly your startup registry keys regularly. Some programs will automatically start as part of the computer start-up, so they are ready and waiting as soon as the computer is operating. Windows Registry was first released with Windows 3.1 and primarily stored configuration information for COM-based components. Note that not all applications store all of their settings in the registry – some applications ignore it!

• At this point, you can repeat the same steps to load other offline registry files if needed.
• The Registry’s intended purpose was to reduce the number of .ini files the OS used to keep configuration details for applications.
• But do you know what is Windows 7 registry is and where Windows 7 registry files are located on your computer?
• A malicious program will be entitled to run every time you start your computer.
• In other words, the registry or Windows Registry contains information, settings, options, and other values for programs and hardware installed on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems.

The registry has different hierarchy levels, with “Hives” as the highest level. It is denoted by “HKEY,” which stores PC data, resources, system configuration, system programs, user information, etc. HKEY_PERFORMANCE_DATA – opencl.dll is missing Contains entries that allow you to access performance data. HKEY_CURRENT_USER_LOCAL_SETTINGS – defines preferences of the current user that are local to the machine. These entries are not included in the per-user registry portion of a roaming user profile.

Get Windows Registry Key Values

Like sitting ducks, they were ripe for being picked off by an accidental press of the Delete key from a novice’s fumbling fingers. There were so many of the darn things than few people could keep straight which INI file contained which settings. There was no mechanism to help you find the setting you needed in a large INI file.

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This is a fairly common thing with new Windows installations where the Registry Editor hasn’t been opened before. There are a few third-party apps also available for taking a backup and restoring those registry keys. Restoring is simple in case you’ve messed up something.