The Technical Reference to the Windows 2000 Registry is an aid to understanding the contents of the Windows 2000 Registry. It includes descriptions of the some of the most useful subtrees, keys, subkeys, and entries in the registry.
The following figure shows the registry of a typical computer, as seen by Regedit.exe. The figure shows the names used in this file to refer to different parts of the registry.
The Technical Reference to the Windows 2000 Registry includes:
The Technical Reference describes the content of the registry. It does not describe the registry component of the operating system or explain its proper maintenance. For this information, see "The Windows 2000 Registry" in Help for Windows 2000. For a more detailed discussion, see Chapter <insert reference here> of the Windows 2000 Workstation Resource Kit.
The Technical Reference describes the registry content that is most useful to administrators and support personnel. It is not a complete listing of all registry contents. It primarily documents entries that adminstrators might need to change and can be changed only by editing the registry.
The vast majority of registry content consists of options that are set and maintained by system code for internal use. Changing the values of these entries can produce unexpected, contradictory, or uninterpretable instructions in operating system and application programs. They can also degrade the performance of your system, obscure the location of essential files, and invalidate your Windows licensing agreement. Do not experiment with the registry or change any entries that you do not completely understand.
Some of the entries described in this file do not appear in the registry of every computer running Windows 2000. Your registry varies depending upon the version of Windows you are running, the hardware and software installed, and the services you have configured for your system. Many subkeys and entries are available in Windows 2000, but operate only when you have added them to the registry directly, either by using a registry editor, or a program that edits the registry.
The Technical Reference to the Windows 2000 Registry is periodically updated and included in releases and supplements of the Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit and the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit.
Corrections and additions to the Technical Reference to the Registry appear in the Windows 2000 Resource Kits Web site.