So you've probably heard lots about it, and you might even have seen errors popping up on your home computer about it. But what is the Windows registry? And what does it do? To put it simply, the Windows registry is to Windows what the spinal cord is to a human body. It's the connection that holds everything in place.
The Windows registry is used to store data and save system settings. It allows us to use a computer time and time again without having to boot it up and then change all our configurations from the moment we lost power last time. It allows software and hardware to interact, with your hardware settings logged in the core registry files and saved for future use. If we didn't keep a record of printer settings, for example, we would have to re-install the printer every time we launched Windows. Instead of that tedious business, we save our specific hardware variables in the registry and Windows can call on them as and when it needs.
The registry isn't abandoned when you're not installing hardware though. It's constantly being amended by the live changes that you make to your system setup. You might not realize it, but every time you go in to your Control Panel, or every time you download new applets from the Internet, the registry is being called in to action with some things being written, other data being read and memory constantly revolving through different states.
As you can probably imagine, the significance of the Windows registry being so instrumental to your PC's performance is that damage done to the registry can not only seriously impede your computer's performance, but it can stop it working altogether. Some registry corruptions can be so tiny, yet so far reaching, that the user will be unable to get back in to the Windows operating system without performing a sweeping repair. Quite inconvenient as you can imagine, and not at all enjoyable to fit without the assistance of a specialist registry repair tool. Thankfully, there are several of these in circulation.
The Windows registry consist of several hives, which are essentially libraries of data settings that are referred to by various programs and applications. Every program that you install on Windows will need to be able to gain access to the core system components, and more importantly save its own settings.
Similarly, have you ever noticed that when you download a file and try to open it, the file opens in a different program to what you'd prefer? This is down to your file associations, something that is managed entirely by the Windows registry. The registry controls what applications are used to open each file type. So an MP3, for example, may be set to open in Windows Media Player while JPEGs are automatically launched in Photoshop.
It's all a matter of preference. But ultimately, the Windows registry is the spinal column of the Windows operating system that enables us to have that preference.
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