Screen savers tip about 
			Your Computers REGISTRY !

1/12/2004




Registry divided into hives 

The Registry is divided into five areas called hives. 
The hives themselves are stored in the 
C:\Windows\system32\config 
and 
C:\Documents and Settings\ {username} files. 


The five Registry hives 


HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT 

This mostly contains information about file types 
and file name extensions. It tells XP how to handle the different 
file types and which user interface options to use. 

HKEY_USERS 

Here's where the system keeps information about every 
user on the system. 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER 

This hive contains system setup info for the machine's current user. 
This includes things such as desktop preferences, printers, 
and security settings. 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE 

This hive stores information about the computer itself and 
the hardware attached to it, such as keyboards, storage, and such. 

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG 

Here's the hive that keeps current hardware configurations 
during the active session. 


Using keys and values 

Underneath each hive are keys that can contain subkeys, 
and those subkeys can have subkeys, and so on and so on. 

Keys and subkeys contain values. 
That's how the Registry controls things. 
Change the values and you change the thing the key controls. 


O'Reilly uses this key as an example. 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse\DoubleClickSpeed 


It controls the time between clicks that determines whether 
something is a double-click or not. You have to edit the key's 
value to change the time. 


Editing a Registry key's value 

Here are the five primary data types in a Registry.

REG_SZ (string value) -- 
numbers and text

REG_MULTI_SZ (string array value) -- 
numbers and text you can edit but not create

REG_EXPAND_SZ (expanded string value) -- 
usually points to the location of files

REG_BINARY (binary values) -- 
binary data

REG_DWORD (DWORD values) -- 
a hexadecimal data type


To edit the Registry, use the Registry Editor 

* * * OK, time again to warn you. * * *
Don't play with the Registry unless you know what you're doing. 
You can really mess stuff up. To run the Registry Editor, 
go to the Run box in Windows and type "regedit" (without quotes), 
then press Enter. 


The Registry Editor works like Windows Explorer. 
***Changes you make take effect either right away *** or 
after a reboot. Keep in mind though that every change you make 
is permanent. There's no undo button. 

*** Did we mention being careful? Be careful ! *** 


A good trick when you're searching for a particular key 
is to use the find command. Press Ctrl + F to launch it. 


Again, for all the details, visit the O'Reilly article we 
mentioned at the top of this piece. 


Lastly, if you don't understand the title of this article, 
please rent this. 


Until next time, happy tweaking!
sarah