Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 Inside Out

Registry Data: How It Is Stored and Used

Now that you know more about the Registry's structure, let's take a look at the actual data within the Registry. Understanding how Registry data is stored and used is just as important as understanding the Registry structure.

Where Registry Data Comes From

As mentioned previously, some Registry data is created dynamically at boot time and some is stored on disk so it can be used each time you boot a computer. The dynamically created data is volatile, meaning that when you shut down the system, it is gone. For example, as part of the boot process Ntdetect.com scans for system devices and uses the results to build the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE subkey. The information stored in this key exists only in memory ...