Solved What is a registry?

[bennys]

I read the info on wikidpedia but I'm still not understanding what the registry is. Can some explain it to me in a very simple language?
Thanks in advance.

 

[dfife]

I read the info on wikidpedia but I'm still not understanding what the registry is. Can some explain it to me in a very simple language?
Thanks in advance.

The registry is like a "Table of Contents" in a book. It basically keeps track of where programs are located, and the settings for those programs. You look in the front of a book to see where chapters in the book are. Windows looks in the registry to find things.

It is much more complicated than that, but this is a very simple way to think of it.

 

[TheShadow]

I read the info on wikidpedia but I'm still not understanding what the registry is. Can some explain it to me in a very simple language?
Thanks in advance.

I explain it to my NON-Computer-Literate customers like this:

The Windows registry is like the Phone Book for Windows.
It lists every program and how it relates to windows and other programs.
It holds all your setups, like how you have your desktop customized, what icons are where and the like.

Just like the phone book, your registry, over time, will become loaded with dead entries. The phone company updates their phone book every day. The windows registry is changed every time you add a new program or even move a desktop icon.
The registry is held in ram memory while windows is running and is only updated on the hard drive when you shut down windows. Then when you reboot your system, the registry is again loaded into ram.

Over time, your registry can become bloated with dead entries. This wastes ram and lowers system efficiency.

I personally run two programs to keep my registry clean and compacted into it's smallest possible size.....to save valuable ram and increase system efficiency.

To clean out the old and dead registry entries, I use "Easy Cleaner 2" and to compact the registry I use "NTREGOPT.exe".
Both programs are FREE and safe to use.

I hoped that helped, some, at least.

Cheers!
The Shadow

 

[LeeTutor]

These pages are probably full of a lot of technical information you won't understand, but I will quote a few basic paragraphs:

The Windows Registry

Every operating system and application needs a place to store configuration settings and user preferences. As computers have become more complex, so have the methods of storing this data. The few settings needed by MS-DOS were stored in the plain text file CONFIG.SYS. DOS programs had to make their own arrangements for storing user settings.
Windows originally used INI files - text files organised in a simple format that could be read and written using special routines available to Windows programs. Windows had one configuration file, SYSTEM.INI, which was used for all the internal settings plus another, WIN.INI, for user preferences. Each application had an INI file, too, usually named after itself.

http://www.tech-pro.net/freescan/free-registry-scan.html​

This system worked pretty well, and is still used by some Windows programs, but it turned out to have a few disadvantages. INI files were slow to access and limited in size to 64Kb. There was also just one INI file per program per computer, making it difficult to have different settings for each user of a computer.
So for Windows NT and Windows 95 Microsoft introduced the Registry. You can think of the Registry as a database for storing and accessing configuration data. Like all good databases the Registry can store different types of data. It is organised for fast and efficient access. Data is stored in a hierarchical manner rather like the folders on a hard disk. Registry data that is currently in use is cached in memory to provide better performance.

http://www.easydesksoftware.com/rworks.htm

 

[locoeng]

I don't know if an explanation could any simpler than this

The Windows registry is a directory which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft Windows

It's a pretty complicated thing, but not necessarily a complicated concept.

 

[sidney1st]

Hi bennys,

I could not explain in a more simple language that the first 5 lines of Windows Registry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sorry.

 

[solonfox]

I...
Over time, your registry can become bloated with dead entries. This wastes ram and lowers system efficiency.

I personally run two programs to keep my registry clean and compacted into it's smallest possible size.....to save valuable ram and increase system efficiency.

To clean out the old and dead registry entries, I use "Easy Cleaner 2" and to compact the registry I use "NTREGOPT.exe".
Both programs are FREE and safe to use.

I hoped that helped, some, at least.

Cheers!
The Shadow

I've used registry cleaners for years and have helped people improve available memory and performance with registry cleaners and tweaks. I have seen enough that I am hesitant to recommend registry cleaners to novices. If all of a user's applications are on the local machine's hard drive and always available, then perhaps registry cleaners are "safe." I think that some warnings - despite the ability to recover from backups - are advisable for users with more complex application configurations such as running from devices that are not always available. Blindly running cleaners may remove registry entries from applications run across a VPN, a USB or removable device, certain LAN configurations (particularly those with diverse system integration).

Registry cleaners? Safe for most, not safe for some. Safe for those who don't know in simple environments. Safe for those who are well educated about the registry in complex environments. Not "safe" for those in a complex environment who don't really understand the registry (and sometimes don't know how to recover without help).

Nice explanation about the registry though.

Cheers

 

[bennys]

~~~~thanks~~~