Name
Registry
Synopsis
This class is the starting point when using the Windows registry, which is the central
repository used by most Windows applications for storing user-specific settings
and preferences. Each static field of this class represents a root RegistryKey object, which has values and
multiple levels of subkeys. These keys are read-only, but can be manipulated
using the methods of the RegistryKey
class.
Most applications store their settings in CurrentUser
(HKEY_CURRENT_USER). The recommended standard is to use the Software subkey, create a subkey for your
organization, and then create a subkey for each specific application (for
example, Internet Explorer preferences are stored in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer). Analogous global
settings that should affect all users on the current computer can be placed
in a similar subkey in LocalMachine
(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE). For example, setup programs often use this key to
store information about installed applications. The full collection of user
settings for all the users of the current computer can be retrieved from
the Users key, as can the
default settings for new users, which are contained in the .DEFAULT subkey
of users. CurrentUser is
actually a mapped subkey of Users, much as CurrentConfig is a subkey of LocalMachine.
The ClassesRoot key contains information used for Windows 3.1-compatible DDE and OLE support. Information for file viewers, Windows Explorer extensions, and file associations is also ...