Windows system registry knowledge completely revealed

The Windows Registry is a set of data files that help Windows control hardware, software, user environments, and Windows interfaces. The registry is contained in two files System.dat and User.dat in the Windows directory, as well as their backup system.da0 and user.da0. The registry database can be accessed through the Regedit.exe program in the Windows directory. Previously, in earlier versions of Windows (before Win95), these features were implemented by Win.ini,system.ini and other. ini files associated with the application.

In the Windows operating system family, the System.ini and Win.ini two files contain all the control features and application information of the operating system, System.ini managing the computer hardware and Win.ini managing desktops and applications. All drivers, fonts, settings, and parameters are saved in the. ini file, and any new programs will be recorded in the. ini file. These records are referenced in the program code. Because of the size of the Win.ini and System.ini files, programmers Add Auxiliary. ini files to control more applications. Microsoft Excel, for example, has an office Excel.ini file that contains options, settings, default parameters, and other information that is relevant to the normal operation of Excel. In System.ini and Win.ini, you only need to indicate the Excel.ini path and file name.

Early in the era of DOS and win3.x, most applications used the INI file (initialization file) to save some configuration information, such as setting the path, environment variables, and so on. System.ini and Win.ini control the characteristics and access methods of all windows and applications, and it works well in a small number of users and in a few application environments. As the number and complexity of applications increase, you need to add more parameter entries to the. ini file.

In this way, in a changing environment, after the application is installed in the system, everyone changes the. ini file. However, no one has deleted the relevant settings in the. ini file after deleting the application, so the two files System.ini and Win.ini will grow larger. Each additional content can lead to slower system performance. And every time an application is upgraded, the challenge is that the upgrade adds more parameters but never removes the old settings. And there is an obvious problem, the maximum size of an. ini file is 64KB. To solve this problem, the software vendor itself starts to support its own. ini file, then points to a specific INI file such as Win.ini and System.ini files. This way down multiple. ini files affect the system's normal access level settings. If an application's. ini file and the Win.ini file set up a conflict, who is the higher priority?

The registry was originally designed as a data file reference file for an application, and finally expanded to include all of the features for 32-bit operating systems and applications. The registry is a set of files that control the appearance of the operating system and how to respond to external events. These "events" range from directly accessing a hardware device to the interface how to respond to a particular user to how the application runs, and so on. The registry is designed to work specifically for 32-bit applications because of the complexity of its purpose and nature, and the size of the file is limited to about 40MB. The use of a powerful registry database to unify the centralized management of the system hardware facilities, software configuration and other information, thus facilitating the management, enhance the stability of the system. One of the most intuitive examples is why different users under Windows can have their own personalized settings, such as different wallpaper and different desktops. This is done through the registry.

This shows that the registry (Registry) is a core "database" of windows9x/me/nt/2000 operating systems, hardware devices, and client applications that can function and save settings, and is a huge, tree-layered database. It records the relationship between the software that the user installs on the machine and each program, and it contains the hardware configuration of the computer, including the automatically configured Plug and Play devices and the various device descriptions, status attributes, and various status information and data.

What does the registry do?

The registry is a data file designed for all 32-bit hardware/drivers and 32-bit applications in Windows NT and Windows95. The 16-bit driver does not work under Windows NT, so all devices are controlled through the registry, which is typically controlled by the BIOS. Under Win9x, 16-bit drivers continue to work in real mode devices, which are controlled using System.ini. 16-bit applications work under NT or Win9x, and their programs still refer to Win.ini and System.ini files for information and control.

In the absence of a registry, the operating system does not get the necessary information to run and control the attached devices and applications and to respond correctly to user input.

The registry in the system is a database that records 32-bit-driven settings and locations. When the operating system requires access to the hardware device, it uses the driver, and even the device is a BIOS-supported device. Devices without BIOS support must be installed with a driver that is independent of the operating system, but the operating system needs to know where to find them, file names, version numbers, other settings, and information, and they cannot be used without the Registry's record of the device.

When a user prepares to run an application, the registry provides the application information to the operating system so that the application can be found, the location of the correct data file is specified, and other settings can be used.

The registry holds location information about the default data and secondary files, menus, button bars, window state, and other optional options. It also saves the installation information (such as date), the user installing the software, the software version number and the date, the serial number, and so on. Depending on the installation software, the information it includes is different.

In general, however, the registry controls all 32-bit applications and drivers, the methods of control are based on the user and the computer, not on the application or the driver, and each registry parameter item controls the function of a user or the computer. User features may include the desktop appearance and user directory. So, the computer function is related to the hardware and software that is installed, so the item is common to the user.

Some programs have effects on users, some on computers rather than personal settings, and, similarly, drivers may be specified by the user, but in many cases they are common in the computer.

Second, the structure of the Registry and the relationship between

Windows has six root keys in the registry, which is equivalent to one hard drive being divided into six partitions.