A Closer Look at HKEY_DYN_DATA
All of the information in HKEY_DYN_DATA is written to
the key at startup. It represents the dynamic data that Windows
95 uses to control the hardware in the system. There are only
three keys, and they hold very simple information that the system
needs for current status monitoring.
None of the data in HKEY_DYN_DATA is written to the hard
disk, except in a temporary file. All of the data gets rewritten
every time the system restarts. Additionally, with Plug and Play,
some of the data may get written over when the status of a device
changes (for example, inserting a network card into a PCMCIA slot
while the system is running).
Config Manager
The Config Manager contains startup information about every device
installed in Windows 95. It gets its list from HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
and checks each item at startup. If a device is found that is
not on this list, it reports that information to the system for
installation. If a device is listed that is no longer in the system,
it will indicate that in the values in this key.
Enum
Startup status of every device that has been installed on the
system is listed in this key. If the device is not ready, it will
show here. If it is ready, that will also show. Pointers are also
listed for each device to show which Registry the device uses
for its control.
PerfStats
The performance characteristics of all of the devices in the
system are stored in this key. It is difficult to read here, but
very simple to read and understand with System Monitor.
Security
The security key shows which authenticator the logged-on user
used to get validated on the machine and on the network.
