Registry internals

[rumencho]

Hi all. My question is about the registry. I've read many tutorials ,but I want to understand it more deeply, from "programmer point of view" How,why, and what exactly ends up in the registry? lets say I had developed a program in C++ (a text editor,with windows,menus etcc.. ) Now, I compile it and run it. Does this modifies the registry in some way? is there a section in registry for my program, and is it now possible to change my prog's settings from there? and which settings exactly is it possible to change from there? Or it's up to programmer to write in sorce-code some statements to explicitely tell which parts of my programs will be editable from the registry?

And second question:

When I look at some programs settings in registry ( windows explorer for example) I can edit only these settings that are already there? or I can put entirely new keys ? How big is exactly the power of the registry? Is it possible to modify the programs in any possible way from it? Please help,or at least tell me about some book or good tutorial?

[Dencandy]

I know little about the registry myself but there's an introductory chapter about it in "Insider Power Techniques for MS Windows XP" by MacFadries, Andersen, Wilson & Winslow, published by Microsoft. There's also a short chapter about working with scripts.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

The Windows registry is a database of information that Windows and various programs use to store there.

If you write your own programs, nothing gets stored in the registry, unless you make your program do this. There are various functions in C++ that allow you to write, read, and modify registry information. Look up Help for details, or http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724875(VS.85).aspx

Many programs, including Windows, do not put all the possible information into the registry. Missing keys will mean the default value for these programs. With some inside information you can add these keys with different values. This is often used for Windows tuning. You can even add keys that have no meaning for these programs, but that - of course - is useless.

Lots and lots of information on these issues can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/ and http://technet.microsoft.com/. I think that every programmer and IT person should be a member of these sites (you will need a Windows Live ID to access the sites fully).

P.S. Even if your program itself does not use the registry, if you decide to distribute your application with an installer, then the installer will write information about the application to the registry.